Time Will Tell
by greyrondo
Summary: Fayt thought it would be so easy to start a new life, with the person he'd abandoned his old life for. But time has no intent of leaving Fayt and Albel in peace, it seems.
1. Chapter 1

Fayt thought it would be so easy to make a new life for himself on Elicoor II—especially after everything he had already been through. But for a world considered so insignificant in the grand scheme of their dimension's existence, he underestimated the importance of the man who so desperately wanted to leave it behind.

This started when, on my second run-through of SO3, I noticed that Albel and the Aquarian Queen looked fairly similar.

Disclaimer: Who owns Star Ocean and its related characters, locales, plots, and such? greyrondo doesn't. But Fayt and Albel's dysfunctional relationship (as described in this situation), original characters, and other necessary inventions are mine.

Chapter One

Fayt struggled to his feet, and choked through the hot metallic tang of blood in his mouth. His blood. He reached to wipe it away with his hand, only to find the bleeding red stain dying his fingertips. That blood wasn't his. His heartbeat pounded in his head, and he couldn't remember where the blood had come from.

He was surrounded by flames. Curtains that rose up like walls, snapping at him as lively as electricity even as it shut out all other light with its smoky ashes. But then, even as he peered into the solid flames, charred and desolate landscape fleshed out on all sides.

He stood on the remains of a battlefield, overturned earth and smoldering ruins impromptu grave markers for the countless dead, both human and dragon, around him. None stirred; none lived. Only a silhouette standing on a rise in front of him, ruby droplets of crimson blood dripping from the tip of the lightly curved blade in its hand. The other hand was a monster's.

"You'll kill me," the silhouette called to him, defiant and proud even as it proclaimed this in despair. "You'll be my death."

And Fayt saw, around him, the telltale concentric circles and arcane symbols burned into the very ground. He had unleashed his power here.

That voice laughed. A low cackle, that rose in pitch until it sounded as though it could only escape the lips of a madman.

"So much for my own sorry blood-soaked existence," the voice continued, gasping for breath, when it had a surfeit of laughter. "Fate has no mercy for the wicked, after all…"

The voice found this wordplay incredibly hilarious. As that cackle resumed, Fayt pushed past the fire, the flames parting playfully like shades. He reached out to the silhouette and shouted out its name.

"Albel!!"

Fayt sat up, his eyes wide and breath fast. The world around him was darkened and blue, pearlescent where moonlight graced it from the open window that looked out onto the peaceful nighttime streets of Peterny.

"Damn," he said softly, with none of the force of his waking outburst, and he roughly massaged his eyebrows before leaning back into the thin, worn pillows.

The misty wisp of chill in the night air caught at his throat as he breathed in slowly, reassuring his rapid heart.

Seven nights since he'd said goodbye to his only lifeline to the rest of what he, six months prior, would have considered civilization. Seven nights since the nightmares began.

"You don't have to do this," he heard Sophia's voice tell him in the darkness. Not that she was really there. No, part of the reason he'd been so eager to stay here on this technologically backward planet was so that he would leave behind the childhood friend he'd so quickly grown apart from, and just as quickly grown annoyed with as their differences became painfully obvious.

It was just moments before he'd leave her behind, and steps away from the transporter pad that would do the deed. His last time on the _Diplo_, for who knows how long.

"No, I don't have to do anything now," Fayt answered back. "So there's nothing stopping me from doing what I want to do."

"Stay on this backwater planet?! When you can come back with me? I know you, Fayt, and you'll be missing our old life as soon as you step off that transporter pad."

That had upset Fayt, he remembered. Sophia claiming she knew him when she hadn't been there for everything that changed him.

"It takes a lot to really know somebody, Sophia," he'd told her, holding his tongue. The other part of the reason he was here had absolutely nothing to do with Sophia, and absolutely everything to do with something she could never know.

Even though he couldn't even stand Sophia now, the fact that they had once been close had been reason enough for Fayt to never tell her the true reason he'd wanted to stay behind on Elicoor II.

Sophia was quiet for a moment, and Fayt could hear the whisper-soft humming of the engines of the _Diplo_ between them. But she finally found her voice.

"So who is it?" she wanted to know. "Who's the one you're staying behind for?"

"What are you talking about?" Fayt retorted.

Sophia shook her head. "Don't play like you don't know what I'm talking about-- I can tell you're lying to me. I know it's not Maria, of course, or you wouldn't be leaving. It's Miss Nel, isn't it?"

There were tears in Sophia's voice, and Fayt flushed as he felt the pairs of eyes observing this scene. The crew of the _Diplo_, all of whom they'd become close to, and Fayt's closer companions Cliff Fitter, Maria Traydor, even Peppita Rosetti. Not to mention the just-mentioned Nel Zelpher. Albel.

"It's nothing like that," he insisted heatedly. Then he sighed.

"Sophia, don't treat this like it's the end of the world," Fayt said, trying to mask a bit of compassion. "I mean, we know what that's like, right?" he laughed softly.

All I do is destroy, Fayt thought to himself as he wallowed in a bit of well-nursed guilt. It had been so easy to say that she didn't need to know the reason when I thought this would actually work.

But the only thing that had happened was the nightmares.

I should have told her, Fayt chided himself, I should have told her the truth. That there's no way I could have stayed behind for her, and that there's no way I could possibly be leaving her for one of the other girls. Then she'd feel better, knowing there was nothing she could do.

Fayt's self-deprecating musings stopped suddenly, and he caught his breath. A muffled cry, from the next room. It did not sound like a dreaming shout, which he had become used to. Someone had been hurt.

And then Fayt was dressed, and outside of his room with his sword in his hand, pressed against the wall, before he had even fully comprehended what he was doing. He prepared to strike as the doorknob twisted open.

"At least you've got some sense," a familiar growl said by way of greeting, its owner noting the glinting sword in Fayt's hands.

Albel. "We're leaving. Now."

"What happened," Fayt wanted to know. "I heard…"

Fayt saw the suggestion of a huddled shape inside the room, lying haphazardly on the floor. It was still, and Fayt caught the faint scent of blood. That was when Fayt noticed Albel was injured. A small wound blossomed low on Albel's waist.

"Later," Albel promised, forcing himself past Fayt and stepping into the hallway. He was fully dressed, or as much as Fayt figured he would be wearing. It was time to go.

The innkeepers were sleeping; so was the rest of Peterny, it seemed. Darkened market stalls waited patiently in the starlight for the morning and trade; even the cobblestones were hushed by the night. There was a single mote of light glowing in the window of the Church of Apris, as Fayt doubted the direction of Albel's lead.

"Albel, isn't Aquios north?" Fayt told him, wondering if something worse than that graze had been inflicted. It wasn't like Albel to be so unfocused, otherwise.

Albel turned on Fayt, his voice only a breath, but vehement and urgent.

"Listen to me, fool. Six minutes ago I killed a man who was after my blood. He wore this," Albel produced an embroidered badge. The emblem was Crimson Blade's.

Fayt took a moment to register this. "But that's…"

"He was Lady Nel's, but I find it hard to believe this is her handiwork. We'll be in Arias by morning. I want answers."

So do I, Fayt thought to himself. Only you're the one that has them. "Is this about that letter the Aquarian court sent you?"

Fayt would not have even known it was from Aquaria had it not been sealed in wax by one of the many Aquarian emblems, a maiden pouring water from a vase on her shoulder. He could only guess at its contents, from the expression of suppressed rage that darkened Albel's features as he read it. He'd tossed it in the simmering fire before wordlessly gathering together his cloak and sword, for the journey. Albel had refused the company of his soldiers, and would have done the same to Fayt himself, had he not refused to leave Albel's side.

Albel didn't answer until they left the protective walls of Peterny. "I suspect it does," he said, his short temper showing in his voice. But even as he said it, Fayt couldn't help but notice the lack of energy behind it. Albel stumbled on a rock in the dark, and growled to himself.

At first he thought that was just Albel being Albel. He hated being ignorant in any situation, as Fayt remembered all too well from their time in 4D, and Fayt had long since accepted that aggression and aggravation were Albel's preferred methods of reciprocating.

But something felt wrong. Maybe it was because he'd heard that hollowed-out sound in Albel's voice before, but it wasn't when he was agitated. Maybe Fayt was just imagining this, since for the first time, there was something troubling Albel and Fayt hadn't been included in knowing what it was.

Or maybe he remembered where he'd heard that tone before, and it had been just before Albel had given up trying to hold on to his consciousness after the Vendeeni had shot him.

"Albel, you're really hurt, aren't you?" Fayt said. "Stop. Let me heal your wound before it gets worse."

"We can't stop," Albel argued, his voice painfully shallow as he moved on. "Do you really think that my would-be assassin went in alone? Crimson Blade works in pairs, at the very least. The sooner we get to Arias, the sooner we can get this taken care of."

Albel breathed in jaggedly, and then shuddered through his next step.

Fayt looked at the back of Albel's head in disbelief. "You can't possibly expect to travel all the way to Arias wounded like that! Sure, it'll be risky if we stop, but at least you won't die halfway!"

Albel did stop at that. "You have no idea what I've lived through."

Fayt wanted to ask what that was supposed to mean, but then Albel hushed him, for he'd heard something.

Great, Fayt mused. The last thing we need is to waste time fending off wild beasts. Unless it was the reinforcements that Albel predicted.

Then Fayt relaxed the tension in his stance, letting his sword drop to his side. He'd heard a shout, and it had been familiar.

"Tynave! Farlene! Flush the surrounding areas for the rest of Astor's men!" Nel barked to her own subordinates, presumably the ones rustling in the darkened surroundings, as she approached them. Seeing that Albel had done nothing to relax the tension in his own sword, Nel took out her blades and held them, harmless, in her open palms.

"Lord Albel, you were smart to leave Peterny. And if my messengers had not been intercepted, you would never have entered and been placed in harm's way." Nel's voice was oddly formal, apologetic, even.

"You're telling me that he wasn't yours? Then explain this," he said breathlessly, sheathing his sword and bringing forward Nel's emblem.

Nel nodded as she registered the familiarity of her own emblem, then looked at it with what appeared to be restrained displeasure. "Please allow me to explain—Lord Albel!!"

Nel, who was closest to him, kneeled and caught Albel as he fell. Fayt was by his side in a breath of a moment. Albel was awake, but his eyes were half-closed and his focus was not with them.

"He wouldn't let me heal him," Fayt said to Nel's widened eyes. Nel was silent for a moment, quiet in thought, and then answered.

"You wouldn't have been able to heal him anyways. This is Crimson Blade poison, and only we have the antidote."

Fayt and Nel locked their gazes for just a moment, a wordless argument taking place between them. Finally, Nel acquiesced and told Fayt to take Albel while she rummaged in her clothing for what ended up being a small vial. She uncorked it, then hesitantly handed it to Fayt.

Tynave and Farlene entered the clearing just as Fayt tilted the vial into Albel's parted lips. They took one long look at the half-awake man whose second-in-command had tortured them within a breath of their lives.

"Gone to Peterny, or maybe even on their way to Aquios or the Sanmite Republic by now, Lady Nel," Tynave reported. "I'm sorry."

Nel sighed. Obviously, it wasn't satisfactory to her, but Tynave and Farlene could hardly be blamed. "Do you think you could carry him? Our caravan's on the road just ahead," she explained.

"I can walk, thanks for asking," Albel told them, the effect somewhat diminished by his weak voice.

"That's why I didn't ask you," Nel mused to herself as she stood up. "I'll explain everything on the way back. Let's move now."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Star Ocean equals not owned by me. Everything original equals me.

Chapter Two

Fayt murmured awake, his eyes heavy and limbs sore. With a stifled groan, he tried to curl up against the morning light and return to sleep, but the bright sunshine was not to be defeated. So he grudgingly sat up in bed, and realized with a subtle shock that the room he had woken up in was not the room he had fallen asleep in the night before.

Then it all came back to him. The nightmare, and their flight from Peterny.

Albel.

Frantically, Fayt tore back the cream-linen sheets, scattered out of bed. But then the door to his room opened.

"Good to see you're awake," he heard Nel say to him as her light footsteps announced her presence in the room.

He looked dazedly at her, and sat back down on the bed.

"You'd hardly sat down in the caravan before you fell asleep," she said.

The question, hovering wanted on Fayt's tongue. And almost as if that question were written plain as day on his forehead, Nel continued, "and don't worry about Albel. He's in the adjoining room," she added, with a nudge of her head in the direction of the hallway.

Fayt's gaze lingered on the wall, somewhere between the bookcases and the portrait of a stranger, then turned back to Nel. "So I guess I never got to hear 'everything' explained," he said with a small laugh. Could Nel perceive the anxiety with which he had awoken?

Nel smiled and shook her head. "You know that our bloodthirsty swordsman would be devastated if I told you about the Crimson Blade's problems without him."

"So there is something wrong happening in Crimson Blade."

There was something abstract in Nel's eyes. "Unfortunately. We've succeeded in the past, in keeping the Circle of Voices' petty politics separate from our operations, but there's a first time for everything, I suppose. But more on that later," she insisted, catching the curious look on Fayt's face. It was obvious she was uncomfortable with the subject, and quickly found a substitute.

"So Fayt," she said, "do you remember what we talked about last time we met?"

Fayt started to say something, but then realized he didn't really know what to say.

He couldn't think of a name for the feeling that suddenly swept through him, spreading from his chest to his fingertips. It felt like shame, but wanting and emptiness at the same time. It clenched tight in the bottom of his stomach, and strangely reminded him that it had been quite a while since he'd last eaten.

His thoughts held on tight to that shred of shallow thought, counting how many hours since lunch yesterday, and calculated that he hadn't eaten in almost a day, however many hours that would be in Elicoorian time.

"Fayt?" Nel intruded on his busy-body thinking.

"Yeah, I remember," Fayt said. And he remembered. They'd been in this very room, in almost the same places, except the bed was made and Fayt was packing, preparing to leave with Albel for Glyphian territory.

The room had been empty, until Nel came in looking uncharacteristically unobtrusive, abnormally shy.

"Fayt, I want to talk to you for a moment," she had said. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Fayt answered casually. "What about?" he hadn't even looked up after that cursory glance as she came into the room. He had no idea what she was going to say, but he started to suspect something when Nel softly shut the door behind her.

"It's about what Sophia said to you before we left the _Diplo_," Nel began.

Fayt was quiet, and slowly finished folding his Aquarian-woven cloak before thinking through what Nel had said, and what Sophia had said. Then Fayt stopped. Nel meant when Sophia insinuated that Fayt was leaving her for the woman now standing in front of him.

"Tell me that you aren't here because you love me."

Fayt could not have answered quickly enough. "No. It's not like that."

Nel seemed put at ease by his words. "Good," she said. She let that syllable hang as she gazed abstractedly out of the window. It was a sunny day, with rain clouds periwinkle in the blue haze of sky.

"Because I love him."

Fayt looked up. "Huh? Who're you talking about?" Right after he said that, Fayt put the pieces together. There was only one other of their number that was still with them on Elicoor.

"Don't look at me like that," she laughed sadly, "there's no way it could work out, even though I would give anything for that to change. You see, there's too much bad blood between us."

"What do you mean?" Fayt asked, thinking hard on keeping his face blank. He had only asked to distract from what he really wanted to say, but never could.

Nel looked at him, and he knew that she was perfectly aware of his sidetracking tactics. But she let it slide. Shy Nel was gone, and normal Nel was back. "You'll probably find out sooner or later. We both lost many things to the war, but Albel was already a victim before the first arrow was fired."

And Fayt realized that Nel had done the exact same thing he did, avoid the question, and it was much safer for the both of them.

"Did you know the father practically offered him as a pledge of allegiance to the current Airyglyph when he took the throne?" she said conversationally. "That the father abused his son's loyalty to him, manipulated his still-childlike ignorance and hubris until the boy was convinced to take the Accession of the Flame when he was only fourteen?"

Fayt frowned. Inside himself, he fumed.

"What was the point of telling me that," he said. "If Albel wanted me to know something that personal about his past, he would have told me."

Nel had sighed. "The point is, I don't know why I love him, and I want him to be happy, and live without the self-loathing that I saw every time our campfire reflected in his eyes. If I can't have him, then I want you to look out for him, Fayt, and… maybe look out for me too."

"So how is he?" Nel's present voice snapped Fayt back from reveries of the past.

Fayt looked up at Nel. "Same, if you couldn't guess from the way he acted last night."

"I was afraid of that," Nel said softly. "And, by the way, I wouldn't trust anyone in Crimson Blade besides Lady Clair, myself, and Tynave and Farlene. No one else is here right now, because I sent everyone on recon to Sanmite and Greeton this morning. But last night I watched over your rooms myself, with Tynave and Farlene posted inside each. I'll leave you to think about that while you get washed and dressed. I'll tell you why in the downstairs meeting room as soon as the both of you have gotten yourselves together."

Fayt wondered why he felt as if he were just dismissed, then stepped into the washroom that a side door led to.

Someone had taken the time to leave out another set of Aquarian clothing in his size, to replace the dirty clothes he was currently wearing. He mechanically stripped himself, a flare of heat crossing his cheeks as a brief flash of imagination showed him Albel's hand undoing his collar, Albel's fingers brushing against his chest as they slipped the shirt from his naked skin. Fayt closed his eyes, and then shook his head and reached for the tap of cold water.

Fayt tried his best not to meet Albel's gaze. Albel was in one of his moods, most likely because of the supposed shame he'd been subjected to when it was a cadet from Crimson Blade who, having proved a deft hand at healing symbology and practical aid during the war, had been the one to dress his wound.

He would have tried to avoid Lady Clair's gaze as well, but since she was the one speaking, it would have been rude. And the only reason that Fayt wanted to keep from looking at her was the look of one who had been betrayed that clung to her ordinarily strong features.

"Lord Albel," she said, bravely addressing him, "the man who attacked you and you killed, perhaps thankfully if I dare say it, was a man named Astor."

"Astor," Albel mused. "So that was him. Of pitifully low rank, am I right? No wonder I didn't recognize his face."

Lady Clair nodded reservedly. "Yes, of inferior rank, but not without loyal subordinates. He liked to collect the younger ones about him, become a sort-of mentor figure."

"A dangerous personality to keep around," Albel noted.

"This is a case of hindsight giving us clarity. We had no reason to suspect his loyalty before. But then again, it was not long ago that his actions would have been seen as courageous, not traitorous."

Lady Clair then sighed, as if deciding something. "I'm going to be perfectly frank. I trust the both of you as much as—excuse me, more than—my own men and women. Crimson Blade is in the middle of a schism, reflecting the recent vacancy of the seat of House Sylphide in the Circle of Voices," she said, still looking at Albel.

"Astor, despite being under Lady Nel's command, found it in his best interest to sell his loyalty, and the loyalty of all those faithful to him, to one of the Houses that opposes the ascendancy of the current heir to the seat. I don't know which House specifically bought Astor's loyalty, but due to the," Lady Clair paused, as if searching for the right word, "deeply immeasurable unpopularity of the heir to Sylphide's seat, then we can safely say that every House not tied to House Sylphide's power is at least favorable to Astor's actions."

Fayt understood all of this. He did not know that Aquaria employed a representative government in conjunction with monarchy, but once he could envision the concept, then the 'how' of everything was easy to comprehend. But it would have been easier to assume that someone out there just really hated Albel, regardless of the current peace between Airyglyph and Aquaria. Now that he knew that everything centered on the inheritance of a seat in Aquaria's government, every bit of sense he could gather together fell hopelessly apart.

But Lady Clair was not yet finished. "And I suspect that what I'm doing right now is only serving to deepen the schism between Crimson Blade. I doubt that anyone will look upon my act of harboring the Sylphide heir kindly, especially the night an attempt was made on his life…"

"What!?" Fayt said out loud and looked at Albel, who made a point of ignoring him.

"Does… Romeria know about this?" Albel said to Lady Clair.

"The Queen will know within the hour," Lady Clair responded calmly. Fayt's expression must have been incredibly shocked, because she addressed him next. "I'm sure Lord Albel will explain his," she paused for tact, "complicated heritage to you in the near future."

Which was as believable to Fayt now as the possibility of Albel being Aquarian was, only five minutes ago.

"I'm going back to Kirlsa," Albel said suddenly, and pulled his chair out and made for the door. "When you Aquarians figure yourselves out, let me know."

"Lord Albel, please wait," Lady Clair called out after him, but the look on her face said she knew she was wasting her time. But she wasted no time in turning to Fayt.

"Fayt, I'm sure you can understand how crucial Albel's successful inheritance of House Sylphide's seat is to any peaceful future relations with Airyglyph."

Fayt didn't understand. "Are you asking me to try to persuade him to accept this?" How could they think that Fayt had any influence over Albel, just because Fayt barely managed to not tick off the Captain of the Black Brigade too much?

Lady Clair nodded, but saw that Fayt needed further convincing. "Fayt, the Queen supports Albel's ascension to Sylphide's seat in the Circle. It will set a precedent of goodwill for Airyglyph and Aquaria's futures, but Aquaria's politicians are not willing to let go of the past so easily, especially when that means embracing Albel the Wicked. You understand our dilemma."

Fayt decided to be honest. Lady Clair had worked too hard for her Aquaria to deserve any less. "You do realize you're asking the impossible," he said, his eyes straying to Nel's. And it came to him that perhaps he meant those words for her as well.

Nel crossed her arms. "That's why we asked you."

Fayt thought for a moment. Then he stood as well. It was time for him to leave, too. He bid them goodbye, and alone walked up the stairs to gather his nonexistent possessions—he'd left them perhaps twelve hours ago in Peterny. Just twelve hours. Time was playing tricks with him again.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Ahem... I hereby swear not to pretend Star Ocean to be of my own invention, from now until the end of time (of course).

Chapter 3

In another time, another place, Fayt's surroundings would be peaceful. Night had set in with moonlight and the stars filtering through the branches dancing in the air, stars that Fayt could name off the tip of his tongue if he only knew their placement in the heavens.

There was a small, but energetic fire separating the two of them. Albel had set an aggressive pace for their journey to the Black Brigade's home, and towards the darkening of evening Fayt had lagged behind so much that he'd grudgingly decided to halt for the night.

Albel sat farther away from the fire than Fayt did, just barely close enough for its light, and for none of its warmth, to be cast upon him. He had curled himself into a half sitting position, letting one foot dangle from the edge of the rock he was sitting on, the other knee held against his chest with his metal gauntlet. He was brooding over that gauntlet again, and his features had settled into dark-eyed contemplation.

Fayt realized he was staring, and hurriedly averted his gaze to the fire. Come back to me, he'd wanted to say. Every time darkness settled into Albel's eyes, Fayt wanted to physically reach out and pull Albel back. But of course that was out of the question, so Fayt could only watch. The look in Albel's eyes made Fayt think of the man drowning, suffocating in his own thoughts.

"Albel, what's going on?" Fayt said. If Albel was going to muse over the previous few days' events anyways, then perhaps he'd speak out loud.

Albel looked up at him. "You heard Lady Clair, didn't you?"

Fayt had, of course. "But I'd rather hear it from you, if that's all right," Fayt told him.

Albel considered it for a moment. "If it makes you that happy," he said with a heavy layer of sarcasm. But he shifted slightly where he sat, and for a moment Fayt felt as if Albel had returned to the semblance of normalcy he had begun to develop in 4D space.

"The last Airyglyph was a coward," he began. "So we were allies with Aquaria for a time. My father married Ephemera Zin Emurille of House Sylphide, whose own father was Sylphide's representative in the Circle of Voices."

Fayt looked at him.

"Of course it was political," Albel said, answering his unasked question. "But my parents did grow to love each other." He said this as if it was a personal affront to him.

"When I was fourteen, the current Airyglyph ascended to the throne, and my mother returned to Aquaria. She had a reason; her father had died of old age, and she was next in line to inherit his seat in the Circle. Her older sister Romeria couldn't, as I'm sure you've realized by now that I'm the Queen of Aquaria's nephew. But really, my mother just wanted nothing more to do with Airyglyph."

Fayt couldn't help but interject. "But what about you? What about your father?"

"My father was no longer with us by that time," he said darkly. He said nothing of Fayt's first question.

"Oh," Fayt said apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

Fayt wanted to ask what had happened, but judging by the way Albel talked, he felt sure the question was out of bounds. He stayed silent, hoping that Albel would continue.

"And now my mother has fallen deathly ill, leaving her seat on the Circle in my possession."

"Ill?" Fayt asked cautiously. If Albel's mother was younger than the Queen of Aquaria, then Fayt guessed that wasn't that old at all.

"Not with any disease that can be cured," Albel answered vaguely. Then he fell silent. He wouldn't be divulging his past any more, Fayt felt that for sure.

A tired shadow came over Albel's eyes, one that could not easily be hidden.

"You should get some sleep," Fayt said. "I'll watch first tonight."

Albel gave Fayt a sideways look. "You're the reason we stopped for the night. I won't be resting any time soon."

"That's why you need it," Fayt said.

Albel pretended he hadn't heard that. "Go to sleep, Fayt," he ordered.

Fayt gave in, and folded his knees to his chest so he could rest his head on them. Fayt couldn't pretend that it didn't bother him, that the closest he'd ever gotten to Albel would be considered, by normal standards, just short of blatantly confrontational.

Then he lifted his head. "Albel?"

Albel sighed tiredly. "What?"

"If you could get rid of me, would you?"

Albel narrowed his eyes. "I had no idea you were feeling suicidal. There are many methods of killing someone; which would you prefer?"

Fayt sighed. "Seriously. If I were to become a burden, and you could leave me behind, would you?"

"You've always been a burden, Fayt. But as for abandoning you?"

Albel's gaze washed over Fayt like the heat of the fire before answering. "As for abandoning you, well, the question of that possibility hardly matters."

Fayt smiled to himself. Curling up again, he lost his gaze in the fire, and soon came into a half-dreaming state. So when Albel skirted the fire, now low and warm, to stand beside Fayt, the boy paid little attention to it.

"Fayt," he said quietly. "Are you still awake?"

Fayt murmured something incoherent: he was mostly in dream. But when he felt the cold edge of Albel's gauntlet tighten around his shoulders, it startled him and returned him to consciousness.

Fayt swore as he turned around abruptly. "Albel, what are you doing? Don't do that to me! It freaks me out," he told the swordsman. "What do you want?"

A glare crossed Albel's expression. "Nothing important. Go back to sleep," he ordered.

"No, what is it?"

"Nothing, worm," Albel said, and turned his back on Fayt while the disheveled boy restlessly tried to return to sleep.

The dark hours of morning were upon them. Albel should have awoken Fayt hours ago. But what would he have done with his share of the night, anyways? He didn't sleep easily, ever.

Instead, he gazed moodily at Fayt's sleeping form, pale as death in the moonlight that filtered through the trees' protecting arms. He could kill him slowly. Make him watch his own blood empty through slits in the arms that had flinched at his touch and pushed him away; through cuts in the throat that cursed and scorned him; through a gaping wound in his uncaring heart. And when Fayt was finally dying, too weak to push him away, he would be able to hold Fayt in his arms without being refused.

Albel mused that perhaps he could simply find some other method of incapacitating the boy, something less permanent, but he would still lose Fayt forever after that one embrace. Perhaps it was better simply to kill him. At least that way no one else would ever have him.

Instead of drawing his katana, Albel gracelessly pulled the cloak from his shoulders and dropped it around Fayt's. The boy murmured something in his sleep, something that sounded suspiciously like Albel's name.

This made Albel unexpectedly angry, but he smirked. Go on, have nightmares about me, if nothing else, he thought to himself.

The boy said his name again, softer, and Albel grimaced and stood up. It was times like that, that had convinced Albel to try and hold Fayt in the first place. The shy smile that Fayt had fallen asleep wearing, the natural acceptance of whatever madness Albel threw at him, and the fact that he was here at all. And yet, his slightest touch had caused Fayt to jump away and shout at him.

Albel glared down at Fayt. If the boy wanted to sleep, then he could have stayed behind on that spacecraft. Albel wordlessly nudged Fayt in the side with his foot, unceremoniously removed the cloak from Fayt's shoulders, and stormed off to a secluded part of their small clearing before Fayt had even wiped the sleep from his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Fayt, Albel, and co. do not belong to me. Neither does the Star Ocean universe/multiverse in general, for that matter. But Helgrave is mine (poor Helgrave…).

Chapter 4

The next day, Fayt stood at the top of the rise that overlooked the Kirlsa Training Facility, or as he thought of it, Albel's home. The wind here was dry, and buffeted his hair as it howled down from the mountains, paradoxically warm even as it wrapped him in the chilling suggestion of snow. The barley-like grain that grew here hissed and shook as the wind passed over the golden fields.

Fayt realized with a start that this rise was the very same from the nightmares that plagued him.

"Albel," he called out suddenly on a whim. He didn't even know what he'd meant to say. But that was just as well; a voice that sounded oddly familiar interrupted him.

"Captain!"

Fayt shaded his eyes against the sun and looked off in the direction of the shout that had a hint of Albel's voice in it. A lone soldier, clad in clothing loose but black in a relaxed version of the Black Brigade's typical uniform. The soldier had sheathed his claymore in a complex set of leather straps on his back, and was using a large stick to walk with. He looked to Fayt like someone who had gone out for a casual hike, rather than a soldier out for patrol.

He hiked up the rise and approached Albel without even the slightest attention to form and protocol.

But he nodded respectfully in Fayt's direction, then turned back to his captain. "Didn't expect you back for a quite a while. Aunt Romeria that sick of you already?"

Fayt recognized again that too-familiar reference to the Queen of Aquaria. And in the soldier, Fayt also recognized Albel's near-black disheveled hair, even though the blond was noticeably absent, and Albel's red gaze, though it was a shade darker and more russet instead of ruby. And even though this soldier was muscular, stocky even, instead of lithe and thin, their relation was obvious. A younger brother? Albel had failed to mention him last night.

"Only our extended family, it seems," Albel said. Fayt noticed, with a stab of unexpected and unmerited resentment, how Albel's characteristic growl was almost completely absent from his voice.

The brother turned to Fayt, an expression of curious amusement on his face. "I remember you. Of course, you happened to be raiding our home at the time. My deepest thanks for offing that slug Shelby, by the way, would've gotten messy if I'd done it," and the brother extended his hand as Albel snorted in response to his brother's words.

Fayt took it. If he wanted to imagine Albel happy, which was almost impossible, he had only to look at this young man.

"Oh! Almost forgot to introduce myself. Helgrave, and…"

It was obvious that Helgrave was about to say something else, something he'd said so often in conjunction with his own name that it had become automatic.

"And I'm Captain Albel's younger brother," he added, his bright mood darkened momentarily.

Fayt chose to ignore this idiosyncrasy, or at least not let the fact that he'd noticed anything be apparent in his voice. "Fayt Leingod," he simply said in return.

Helgrave's almost fey smile returned as if nothing had occurred. "Well, my Captain, do me the honor of allowing me to escort you and your traveling companion home."

Albel only shot his brother a mock glare, but Fayt supposed that was as close as Albel would get to humoring someone. Fayt had been the receiver of that same halfhearted glare many times over, and so he knew that there was no real enmity between them.

Helgrave more than made up for the silence that had fallen over Albel and Fayt. Fayt felt sure that Albel would have ordered him to shut up, if everything that Helgrave said had not been important in one way or another. As it was, Helgrave spoke nonstop of troop morale, improvement of the sub-brigades, and on a much less promising topic, of the gradual dissolving of the Airyglyph military.

"Woltar told me—well, told Lieutenant Captain Jarvis, who immediately informed me—that the king sees little point in maintaining the Black Brigade at its current size, Captain."

Fayt, trailing behind, found it strange for Helgrave to act so familiar with his brother and still refer to him as Captain. Even though he knew there could be no way to avoid it, Fayt felt left out and thought they could not move fast enough towards the Black Brigade's home. They had almost reached it.

"He says it's because while the other brigades are more versatile for peacetime, the Black Brigade's training is so specialized for war that he feels that we should bear the brunt of military reduction."

Albel growled at this. "We suffered the most losses during the wars, and shed the most blood for his Majesty," he said, "and this is how he repays us."

"This is the only way to make a living for many of your men," Helgrave commented. "And of course they will be the soldiers to be dismissed first, having no ties to the king."

"I suppose I would not be worthy of a Captain's respect if I did not plead their case for them," Albel said, in a voice that, for any other person, would have seemed grudgingly. But Helgrave's face lit up visibly.

"Will you really?" Helgrave wanted to know.

Albel looked at him sideways. "Do you doubt my word?"

Helgrave grinned and shook his head. "Didn't know you'd given it. Afternoon, Merric, Kender."

The two soldiers they had just come upon saluted Albel and froze. They were here. Fayt tried to look past the soldiers, at the surrounding practice fields and clearings. Albel must have given a wordless order, because the soldiers proceeded to relax without any verbal command of 'at ease' or any of the like.

But Albel was quick to give orders immediately after. "Merric, you have been relieved of guard duty early to escort our guest to a suitable set of rooms of his own."

Merric stepped forward to follow his newest orders, but Helgrave immediately cut him off.

"Sir, may I please offer my assistance instead? My patrol was set to end at exactly this time, and so I'm free to follow whatever orders you may give."

Albel rolled his eyes. "If it pleases you that much," he muttered, and Merric subsequently stood down. Then he stood for a moment.

"I need a word with Jarvis," he said suddenly, in his grudging manner of excusing himself.

Fayt watched as Albel left them in the direction of the cleared-off training grounds, and then noticed with a start that Helgrave had already cleared the gate ahead of them.

"Hey! Wait up," Fayt began, but as he wondered about what title he should latch onto Helgrave's name, the younger Nox leisurely stopped.

"I didn't expect you to dawdle," Helgrave laughed as Fayt passed into the green-tinted interior of the Kirlsa ruins. Or what had been the ruins—somehow, in the time since Fayt had been here last, the dilapidated stone architecture had been cleared away, and the grime ages had worn into the stonework gone to reveal black and beryline masonry.

"Only the nobles," Helgrave said in a feigned haughty accent, "wander around like that, taking in the 'rugged sophistication' of the Black Brigade's home. Like what I've done with the place? Doesn't look a day over four hundred, might you say? At least, that's what everyone at Airyglyph Castle insists. Quite lovely," he added in a mocking smug voice.

Fayt snorted at Helgrave's remarks, but noticed that the renovations only went so far as the first floor.

As they ascended the staircase, Fayt tried to subdue the tingle of a chill that went down his spine. Even though no soldier would attack him now, he was instinctively on edge. And now that they were in the upper reaches of the fortress, it was still plain that its tortured interior was only masked by the first floor's façade: the light that reflected green off the peculiar stone, the occasional collapsed-in room, and the stains that he felt sure were blood, did nothing to help put Fayt at ease.

"Well, in case you didn't notice, I'm not nobility," Fayt told Helgrave.

"Thank Apris for that," Helgrave said as they walked past an intricately woven tapestry. "But you're a strong warrior; that's worth more than bloodline any day in the Black Brigade. Worth ten times that to the Captain, too."

Fayt blinked at Helgrave's thoroughly Aquarian remark, but had Helgrave's latter remark more on his mind.

"Do you think so?" Fayt said in a way that he hoped had passed for casual. To his disappointment, Helgrave only shrugged.

"Who can say? The Captain I knew would value strength over anything."

Fayt frowned with concern. "Are you saying that you don't think you know Albel? You seemed pretty close to him, to me."

Helgrave regarded Fayt silently, and almost as if deciding something, nodded to himself and proceeded to answer.

"All I know is that the Captain that came back from Aquios is not the same Captain that Woltar forced to lead you through the Urssa Lava Caves. That's something I have a hard time forgiving, nothing more said."

Fayt wondered who Helgrave had meant, Albel or Count Woltar, when Helgrave stopped in front of a door. They had already climbed to the third floor and gone halfway down the main hallway and Fayt had hardly noticed.

And then Helgrave stopped.

He slung his hands back into the wide pockets of his overshirt, and leaned against the wall; Helgrave managed to look casual even with the oversized harness getting in the way.

"So… Fayt Leingod," he said, still with the lightheartedness that Fayt had begun to take for granted.

Fayt turned to face him. "What is it?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Helgrave said, and took out a small paring knife. Fayt had the distinct impression that Helgrave was going to threaten him with it—if Albel was capable of it, then who was to say his brother was really all that different—but then Helgrave took out something similar to an apple from his side bundle and began peeling it abstractedly.

The golden-red peel, thin as a filament of light, spiraled down from the blade.

"I'm trying to get to the bottom of this, you see," Helgrave said slowly, "since he's my brother and you seem to know what he's been up to these past few months or so."

"What are… you talking about?" Fayt said blankly. He figured that Helgrave had not been included in the small circle of individuals who knew the real reasons behind everything that had occurred on Elicoor II.

Helgrave shook his head, and the peel fell away. He ducked his hand into a doorway and rid himself of the peel, then cut a slim slice of fruit from the apple.

"An engineer from Greeton," Helgrave said. "Shows up just as the whole Aquaria thing escalates. The following complications turn so bad that his Majesty finds himself imprisoning my brother, and then changing his mind and making him work with Aquaria. And you."

Helgrave looked at him. "Apple?"

Fayt shook his head politely, and Helgrave shrugged. "They're best this time of year," he commented.

"I remembered you," he continued. "Because of your hair—not natural, you know, even to Aquarians. And then, just like that, Albel's gone completely. Comes back a few weeks later, and he's changed. Enough to get Dad's sword, I guess. I don't know."

"You want to know what happened."

Helgrave sighed, and finished the last of the fruit, pit and all. "I don't know where I was going with that conversation. You don't know Albel like I do, so of course you don't get why it matters. Don't worry about it, it's all good."

That's not it at all, Fayt wanted to reply, but Helgrave had already straightened to his feet and walked to the next doorway down the hall. The carefree grin on his face said that the conversation was over, and that Helgrave didn't plan to revisit it in the next few minutes, at that point. But it seemed to Fayt that there would be no bad blood between them, and Helgrave still gave off the image as someone Fayt could trust.

"So here's, in my opinion, the best of the guest chambers. The rest of them are on the second floor in with the barracks, but the rooms next to this one belong respectively to me, Lieutenant Captain Jarvis, and of course the Captain."

Fayt wondered why the thought of Albel's rooms being here on the third floor had made him uneasy inside. He'd slept in the same room with Albel, even slept sort-of next to him during camp. But the privacy of the chambers suggested something that roaming with their traveling companions could not.

"So I'll let you get…" Helgrave was about to say 'unpacked', but then realized Fayt had next to nothing with him, and continued, "…get settled in. You can steal extra clothing from the laundry, they won't mind, and same goes for food from the kitchens since you're not a soldier; dinner'll be late. Feel free to wander, and if you need anything, find the nearest soldier that's not actually carrying a weapon or in armor."

Fayt looked inside the room. There seemed to be more of the artwork he'd seen earlier, but little of other decorating. The room took its richness from the miniature library in shelves near the fireplace, and the afternoon sunlight that streamed in from a window.

"And if you'll excuse me, I've got to go show my face downstairs for drill. Come watch, if you want."

Fayt nodded in agreement, but as soon as he found the bed, he sank down into it. He found a heavy blanket folded at the foot of the bed, and despite the mild temperature, wrapped himself in it for comfort's sake and closed his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Star Ocean belongs to... is it really Square Enix? raises eyebrows I feel kind of bad for what I'm making Fayt go through. Well, almost.

Chapter 5

Fayt woke up with a thin sheen of sweat on his skin, his clothes sticking and aching where they had clung uncomfortably to him in sleep, and his mouth dry and mind still half in dream.

The heavy blanket had fallen off the bed as he sat up; he must have tossed most of it aside in sleep. What had he been dreaming about? It had not been the nightmare, for once. But he had a feeling of vague anxiety about it, whatever it had been.

How many nights had it been since he'd slept in the same place two nights in a row, Fayt wondered as he stood up. And there was no guarantee as to how long he would stay here. At least he had the sense to take his boots off before he took a nap.

It was dark. Fayt realized he had probably missed dinner, but he didn't feel particularly hungry right now. And when he thought about dining with Albel, he liked the possibility even less. It didn't help that Helgrave had already said more to Fayt in the half hour they were introduced to each other, than Albel did in a week. If Fayt didn't know better, he would have guessed that Sphere had created Helgrave with the sole purpose of taunting him, of reminding him of everything Albel would not be for Fayt.

As he descended the main stair to the first floor, lingering scents of food told him that dinner had in fact come and gone. A few soldiers walked the halls, but none of them were in battle gear and most of them seemed cheerful, or at least content, to Fayt's bafflement. He'd assumed that the Black Brigade would be a reflection of their Captain, bloodthirsty and reclusive, or else that Albel would have ordained the Brigade a strict military environment that would have made cheerfulness punishable by death.

Fayt passed by an open archway, where something far from the sound of laughter made Fayt jump and cringe at the same time: the sting of steel grinding against stone.

"Got ya, punk. Try me again," a low, grating soldier's voice said haughtily.

Fayt hovered in the doorway. Some soldiers had apparently not stopped halted their training for the evening, quite yet.

A sandy-haired boy, a few years younger than Fayt, flipped the grip of his sword in his hand and lunged for his more experienced sparring partner again. There were three other pairs going back and forth like these two. Albel, Helgrave, and an overly tall and muscular figure that an anonymous murmur identified as squad leader of the Night Sub-Brigade.

The older soldier failed to execute his block fast enough. The boy pulled his blade just a breath before it grazed the soldier's black tunic. Fayt, thinking the older soldier familiar, realized that it was the same soldier, Merric, that Helgrave had taken over for.

"Merric, don't be so kind next time," Albel's voice admonished, regarding the younger trainee emotionlessly.

"Your enemies won't be so generous," Albel added to the younger boy. "Helgrave, assist Merric."

Helgrave ignored an oversized halberd in favor of the claymore that Fayt had seen him wielding earlier. He placed it in his grip as casual as anything, and took a fighting stance at the older soldier's side.

The trainee took in a steadying breath; he only seemed afraid when Albel took a complementary fighting stance next to him.

Fayt realized he was staring, and continued on his way.

He had seen enough of the way Albel fought, with even that young trainee, to recognize a fluid unity stronger than Fayt had with Albel when they fought against something. He remembered how quickly Albel was ready to leave behind Elicoor II, but how much of that was really thought through on Albel's part, and how much impulse?

Did Albel miss the Black Brigade? Did Albel even, Fayt wondered in fear, regret leaving Elicoor II, as much as he showed visible distaste at being once again on his home world? Fayt thought that near impossible, but with every passing moment, Fayt felt less and less sure of his own judgment. If only there was some way to know more.

Fayt's thoughts shifted gear when the next question in his mind was: why don't I recognize where I'm going?

Wherever he was, he was no longer familiar with his surroundings. Lost in his thoughts, he had managed to lose himself in the Kirlsa Training Facility.

He sighed in aggravation at himself. He turned around, ready to retrace his steps, when curiosity caught him and he brushed his hand against a suddenly-interesting doorway. After all, he would still be just as lost.

This room had not seen regular use in a long time, Fayt observed as he pushed the rusted door open, letting light from the hallway offer a dim glow on what appeared to be a room reserved for storage. Items were stacked precariously, as if their previous owner had wanted them out of sight, and quickly.

Casting a sign of symbology to light the dusty sconces, Fayt moved inside and treaded carefully through the rows that hardly distinguished trash from treasure. There were stacks of books, pages and spines devoured by various insects, some of them still at work.

There were gilt frames, the art they contained facing the wall. Fayt tilted back one frame with his hands, and found a portrait of a boy with a hopeful glimmer in his eyes despite his serious expression, of perhaps twelve or thirteen. Not recognizing him apart from the typical features that Fayt associated with Albel's brethren, he gently replaced the frame and moved on.

He investigated a set of chalices engraved with the emblem of the Nox family and what looked like a purely ceremonial artifact of weaponry before finding the tapestry. The detail that had set it apart initially, in Fayt's eyes, was that it was hung instead of folded or placed in a chest somewhere. But then Fayt saw the sorry state the tapestry was in, fraying at the sides and practically ripped to shreds near the bottom, and he reasoned that no one would go through the trouble when it was obviously beyond repair.

Still curious nonetheless, he drew closer. It was a family tree, extending back centuries and, as far as Fayt, could tell around the ripped weave, perfectly up-to-date. He couldn't find Albel's name, but after a moment of careful examination, he discerned Helgrave's. There seemed to be something connecting Helgrave's name to something or someone else, but a rip cut a rent right through where that something or someone would have been.

And then there was another name. Rozali—another tear cut off that name too, but Fate guessed at the name Rozalin from the shape of the letter after what could be easily read. So there was a sister as well, Fayt contemplated as he let his eyes unfocus from the details a little and wander over the tapestry in general.

Fayt's eyes found themselves following the tears. They ripped clean through Albel's father's name, and through his mother Ephemera's as well. At least the damage didn't creep up much past the last two generations, Fayt thought to himself. Whatever weapon had done this must have been vicious.

The cuts were thinner and more deliberate than a sword. A knife, perhaps, Fayt thought. Or not a knife. A gauntlet.

"Albel?" Fayt whispered to the tapestry as he laid his hand on it, gently caressing the broken fibers. To the left of Helgrave's name, where Albel's should have been, so much of the tapestry had been torn apart that someone might as well have cut it out entirely.

Suddenly anxious, Fayt felt as if he had trespassed on something fiercely private of Albel's. He didn't belong in here anymore. But his hand lingered on the tapestry for a solitary moment longer, before he turned to leave the old room to its dilapidation and dust.

It was haste, or perhaps simply carelessness, that caused Fayt to tumble into a stack of books as he exited. Feeling it was his business to right the mess, he halted his departure and tried to set them upright. One's spine simply shifted in his grip, and a few loose papers that had been unkindly shoved into the hardcover's table of contents fell heavily to the floor, with all the gracelessness of thick, written-on paper.

Fayt grudgingly picked up the sheets, and took a cursory glance at them as he began to return them to their original place. A familiar name, but an unfamiliar hand. He read closer.

_To my friend Glou:_

_Your encouraging—and enriching—words on leadership have yielded much benefit, as you can see by my new position of counselor to His Majesty Airyglyph. I write because I have you solely to thank for my advancement in the eyes of the king, and without your advice all would have been impossible._

_And while I say this, I find it difficult to ask yet more of you. It is ironic and uncomfortable to me that, while it is I in fact who is beseeching you most humbly, would ask of you a public declaration of your faith in my ability. I believe that I will require a greater amount of public support if I am to excel to a position of excellence, even greater than that of esteemed Count Woltar, to achieve my goal._

_I have requested a similar act from Duke Vox, but of course with none near the gratitude that I express to you._

_And congratulations! Please relay my well-wishes to Ephemera. May a new Airyglyph shine soon,_

_Arzei_

Fayt read it curiously, not quite understanding what the letter exactly meant to convey—there must have been a close connection between Albel's father and the king, with so much information left assumed within the text. His goal, for example—what could that be?

The crown, perhaps, Fayt mused darkly as he reread the last line, and looked at the sheaf of papers. That left the assumption that the current Airyglyph came into possession of the throne with less-than-traditional methods. Fayt put the papers back, knowing it was very well none of his business.

But at the same time, Fayt was more curious than he would have been a few days ago. With the political chaos unfurling before his eyes, he could hardly blame himself for wanting to know more.

Fayt told himself it would be wrong, especially after having already seen that tortured tapestry. And he had no doubt that Albel would live up to his epithet if he discovered that Fayt knew something compromising. But he wanted more than anything to understand Albel.

Fayt zipped the sheaf of letters into his shirt, and resolved that, even if something else caught his eye, he would ignore it. He kept to his own word and left the room without so much as a wary eye at any of the other echoes from the past.

He was ambushed by Helgrave at the stairwell leading up to the second floor. Fayt wondered if his misadventures in the darkened hallways were somehow seen, or if suspicion was written on his face, but of course he worried for nothing.

"Hey, Fayt," Helgrave said casually. "Saw you watching training for a moment there. You could have joined in, if you wanted."

Fayt laughed before he could help himself.

"What?" Helgrave insisted. "Think you wouldn't have been welcome?"

"Well," Fayt drew out, "not really. I mean, I can fight, but not like you guys."

"You mean you can't fight like the Black Brigade? I'm sure you've picked up on at least one or two things from hanging around Albel," Helgrave told him.

Fayt shrugged. "I don't know. I've just done whatever worked to survive. It's not an—a profession, or an art, for me. Like it is for you."

Helgrave studied him. "Whatever. If Albel could stand to fight by your side, your swordsmanship is up to snuff more than you're letting on. Meet me outside at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, and I'll see for myself."

Helgrave bid Fayt good night before the blue-haired young man could even reply.

"You look rather exhausted, might I add? As your temporary captain, I order you to get some more sleep. Dismissed, soldier," Helgrave grinned and tapped his forehead in a carefree salute.

Fayt half-smiled incredulously, and continued up the stairs to be alone with his musings.


	6. Chapter 6

How's Time Will Tell going so far? This is my first long fanfic-- any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: Of course. Everything original is mine, Star Ocean is not.

Chapter 6

Fayt watched from the fenced-off entrance to the training ground, as Helgrave worked his way through what Fayt supposed was a training exercise, or perhaps a weapons demonstration pattern. Helgrave's technique showed off unbelievable strength, but it was with none of the beauty of Albel's style that Fayt found so morbidly enchanting.

The night before, despite whatever Helgrave had thought about how tired Fayt appeared, the young man spent most of the night in a state of unidentifiable anxiety.

His room, filled with moon light and the crisp clarity of night air fallen from the snowy mountains, kept him like a beast in its cage. For simple want of something to do, Fayt strayed over to the bookshelves, and ran his fingers lazily across the bound spines as he judged the unfamiliar titles. _The Lineage of Kings. The Dragon's Weave, a History of the Dragon Brigade. War Runology. _

And stranger titles, ones that Fayt slipped out of the bookcase to discover their contents. There was a book of Glyphian philosophy, a travel diary from the Sanmite Republic with sketches of the Lost City of Surferio. A book describing the mechanics of a Greetonese invention that looked suspiciously similar to Albel's gauntlet. And even, worn and faded though it was, a slim volume delineating the mythology and teachings of Apris. Fayt wondered how long that little book had laid hushed and forgotten there.

He took in a meditative breath of that night air, hoping the chill would clear his mind. But it was a useless blade to the miasma that had settled like fog around Fayt's thoughts.

Because, of course, his mind had set itself on Fayt's most obsessive subject.

Fayt found it impossible to believe that his mind actually spent what had to be all of its time thinking about Albel. Perhaps because he was in Albel's world now, there were no distractions to lead Fayt's thoughts astray. And the letters now in his possession were what caused the anxiety that fueled his errant thoughts and kept him wide-eyed awake.

It didn't matter that he could put them back and, likely, no one would know the better. It did matter that he had already looked into Albel's world.

Why was this all so hard?

An alien sound flitted through the silent room. Fayt jumped up with a start; it took him a moment to recognize that the sound was from his communicator, the only link he had now to his former world.

"Sophia?" Fayt said thickly, fumbling for the message button.

He pressed it, only to have connection terminated from the other side. He was alone.

Helgrave finished, and to Fayt's wide-eyed surprise, managed to toss his oversized sword in the air and deftly catch it in one hand, as if had been as light as a staff or spear. Fayt was still registering the casual execution of incredible skill and strength when Helgrave turned to him.

"Morning, Fayt! Sleep well? You'll need your strength if you're going to learn how to fight like a real swordsman!"

No kidding, Fayt thought to himself as he stepped into the dusty circle.

"All right if I take a look at your blade? I've never seen an Aquarian-made up close before. At least, not one that wasn't covered in blood."

Fayt nodded and handed it over. Helgrave examined it closely, carefully, and in doing so made Fayt think of the painstaking way in which Albel maintained his sword and gauntlet. What had Albel said about the gauntlet, once? 'Greeton engineering, Aquarian runology, Glyphian intent', he'd muttered the one time Fayt had asked about it.

Helgrave handed back the sword, and began to walk around distractedly as he talked. "I'm not nearly as good at the various arts of war as, well, pretty much everyone ranked above me, which isn't saying much about myself. What do you say we," he said, "have ourselves a sparring match first?"

Fayt smirked. "No problem," he said, settling into a fighting stance.

They traded blows, until a lull came in their fighting, with Fayt coming out worse for wear. The skill he'd seen Helgrave practice with was definitely above what he was using to fight Fayt, and even so Fayt was getting sorely beaten. And he didn't like it.

"Come on," Helgrave laughed. "You expect to fight me like that? Show a little backbone!!"

Fayt growled to himself. He didn't know what was more annoying, Albel's cutting criticism or his brother's light-hearted banter. Fayt's memory of the fight against the Creator was still fresh in his mind, and here was Albel's little brother disparaging his fighting style.

Fayt, indignant, let his emotions dictate the next blow. Helgrave cast it aside as if Fayt had attacked him with a blade of the wheat waving in the fields. Infuriated, Fayt swung again, and Helgrave parried effortlessly, the bulk of his blade sending Fayt's sword aside with enough force to knock Fayt off balance.

Helgrave took the opportunity to move in and kick Fayt with just enough strength to send Fayt to the hard ground.

"Guess nobody told you to keep a guard on your feelings as well as your stance," Helgrave grinned, offering Fayt his hand. "But I shouldn't have baited you like that. It was wrong of me," Helgrave admitted.

Fayt removed his hand from his middle, having regained his breath, and wordlessly got to his feet. If Albel was the Black Brigade's best, then why was his younger brother proving to be such a challenge? In less than five minutes, Fayt's confidence in his swordsmanship had diminished until it felt like he'd just picked up a blade for the first time.

"Right," Helgrave said, sighing even as he tried to keep the mood up. "So… I think what needs to happen right now with your fighting style is that you need to separate yourself a little from the fight at hand. You're too emotionally involved, and the decisions you make while fighting are suffering because of it."

This stung Fayt, and even made him a little angry. The only reason that he had survived anything was that he had the strength of his emotions pushing him on. How could anyone say that he needed to step away from them? What did Helgrave know about how he fought?

"You're not taking that too well, I see," Helgrave said perceptively. "Hey, criticism hurts. Trust me—the Captain's my brother, after all. But it makes us better."

Fayt still didn't believe him. "I beat Albel once," he said.

"Yeah, I heard by way of Woltar. And it's funny you mention that. It's the perfect example of what I was talking about, letting your emotions rule you during battle. It can ruin even the best of us, as you saw."

Fayt frowned. "All I was at that point in time was someone with Crimson Blade."

"Which was enough for him at that point. It would have been enough for me, too, tell the truth. You know I'm a twin?"

Fayt recalled the slashed woven tapestry, the destroyed family tree he'd come upon the night before. So that other branch had meant to connect something to Helgrave, after all. Still, the knowledge shocked him.

"My brother Sieg took a blade from one of Crimson Blade's soldiers perhaps moments before the Captain fought you. He took it for the Captain, in the heart."

"I…" Fayt began.

"He died as Albel incanted the runology that would have saved his life."

Fayt was quiet. It was a warm day even for Kirlsa, but he felt that a chill had settled between them.

"I wasn't in the field that day—or we might have met much earlier than yesterday. Now, let's fight for real this time."

Fayt was glad for a change of subject, and glad for the opportunity to think a little about what Helgrave had said, as they guarded and parried in a half-lesson, half-duel. And through the entire time, Helgrave was quick to offer streaming commentary, advice, and even ask Fayt about some of the monsters he had faced before.

Why can't Albel be like this, Fayt mused. And no sooner had he said it, when he saw Albel watching from the sidelines. How long he had been there, Fayt could not even guess. He'd been so involved in his fight with Helgrave that everything else had gone unnoticed. But just as Fayt looked his way, Albel turned away and walked on.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean and its associated characters and scenarios. All other material is of my own invention.

Chapter 7

As Fayt found himself staying at the home of the Black Brigade for almost a week, he saw less and less of Albel as the days progressed. On the fourth day, he had passed the entire day without seeing the Captain once before finally asking Helgrave, and learning that Albel had gone to Airyglyph Castle on what the younger brother called 'undisclosed business'.

"It means he's trying to get thrown off the guest list for His Majesty's wedding," Helgrave explained when Fayt asked what he had exactly meant. They were climbing up the same rise that Fayt had first met Helgrave on, on what turned out to be the same schedule of patrol that Helgrave had been walking four days earlier.

Fayt had with him a side bag like Helgrave's—inside were the letters. He did not dare leave them in open in case the Training Facility's servants found them. From his experiences in the kitchens, nosy could not even begin to describe them.

"But it's all up to whether or not the Glyphian Court decides if it would be good or bad politics for the Captain to show his face during the wedding, because of the Circles of Voices chaos."

Fayt nodded. He didn't care if Albel hadn't even thought to tell him, much less bring him along, he decided.

"If you ask me, he's wasting his time—there's no way they can afford for him to attend. Nothing worse than another botched assassination to put a pall over a wedding, am I right?"

Fayt laughed. "Guess not," he replied. Helgrave's morbid sense of humor was the same as Albel's, Fayt noticed, but with something different that Fayt couldn't identify. Stop comparing Helgrave to Albel, Fayt told himself.

They had walked about ten minutes more, south towards Kirlsa's central town, when Helgrave stopped.

"Hey, Fayt," he said quietly, and suddenly serious. "Can I ask you something?"

Fayt stopped too, and looked up at Helgrave curiously. "Yeah, anything. What?"

Helgrave looked off, and shaded his eyes against the bright afternoon sun. "You see that cart?" he said.

Startled, Fayt looked out. "Yeah, I do," and he squinted his eyes. He could just barely make out a redhead walking beside a covered cart driven by a brunette and a girl with lavender hair, all dressed in varying degrees of black.

"Wait a second," Fayt began. "That's Nel!! And Tynave and Farlene!"

Helgrave frowned, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, Aquarians. Guess you would know them."

Fayt left Helgrave's side, and began to jog up the path to meet the caravan halfway.

"Hey!" Helgrave called out before running to catch up with him.

Nel waved cheerfully to Fayt before they'd even come close enough to greet each other, but there was a serious expression in her eyes. It took over the rest of her when she took notice of Helgrave.

"Something wrong, Nel?" Fayt said when Helgrave caught up to them. Farlene kept the reins in her hands and halted the cart, and Tynave jumped off, to be by Nel's side.

"Leader of Obsidian Squad of the Black Brigade, Nel," Tynave whispered in her commander's ear. "Younger brother of Captain Albel Nox. His name…"

Helgrave took Nel's momentary silence to introduce himself. "Lieutenant Helgrave Nox," he said cordially. "Might I ask what brings Crimson Blade to Kirlsa, Miss…?"

This brought a half-smile to Nel's frown. "I think you already know who I am, young man. But it is kind of you to honor courtesy. These are my traveling companions, Tynave and Farlene."

Helgrave smiled. "A pleasure to meet all of you. Lady Nel, I hope I don't offend you if I ask if you've spoken to Count Woltar about your squad's presence in Kirlsa?"

Nel folded her arms, but with her it seemed a way of keeping a light expression rather than a cross one. "Of course I spoke with the Count Woltar upon entering Airyglyph lands, and he granted us permission, or I assure you we would not be traveling on the main road."

Helgrave took a moment to take her words in, then closed his eyes and let out a genuine laugh. "So it seems, Lady Nel," and laughed again. "But that brings me back to my first question and the primary duty of one who is on patrol. What business have you here in Kirlsa?"

Fayt found himself meeting Tynave's eyes, and realized they were both thinking the same thing: something was going on between Nel and Helgrave. But Fayt felt sure that Nel and Helgrave had never met before.

"I would make a request of your Captain, and of Fayt," Nel said, turning to Fayt as she said it.

But it was Helgrave who answered first. "My Captain away on business at Airyglyph Castle," he said to her, "but if it is a request that Lieutentant Captain Jarvis can listen to, I will be happy to escort you to the Black Brigade's home."

Nel seemed to entertain the thought, but in the end she shook her head. "I'm afraid it's business for Lord Albel and Fayt alone, but if your Captain is not here, I can't afford to wait for him to return or attempt to intercept him at Airyglyph Castle."

She paused, and the initial worry that Fayt had seen reappeared. "In fact, the sooner we move on, the better. Fayt, do you have everything that you absolutely need with you?"

The only thing Fayt really needed was his communicator; everything else, even his sword, was replaceable. And if Nel was so worried about time to ask for Albel and then decide they couldn't waste time waiting for him, then they had to leave immediately.

Helgrave looked to be considering something. "You know, if you'll wait for perhaps an hour or two, I can contact the Dragon Brigade for you and cut your travel time by days."

"That's thoughtful of you," Nel said to Helgrave, who smiled self-consciously. "But we can't have any other companions. Even Tynave and Farlene will be leaving us as soon as we reach Aquarian lands."

"That bad, huh?" Helgrave replied.

The tension her words had caused was as thick as humid air before a storm, and Helgrave picked it up as soon as she had spoken. Helgrave shook his head lightly in response to Fayt's worried gaze. "Don't worry about it. You do what you have to do, all right? Don't worry about anything else until after that."

"Never heard truer words," Nel said appreciatively.

Fayt turned to Helgrave. "Well, see you later," he tried to sound casual.

"No problem, Fayt. I'll let the Captain know who you've gone with. I don't know if he'll be happy about it, but what can you do?"

Not much, Fayt thought to himself.

Helgrave turned to Nel. "Lady Nel, I sincerely hope we meet again, perhaps under less anxious circumstances. Have a safe journey, all of you."

He bowed with lopsided grace, and Nel bowed her head respectfully in return.

Later in the cart, as they headed south again for Kirlsa, Nel and Fayt sat in the back, where the fresh air came in and they could look out the back.

"He seemed quite friendly," Nel said without taking her eyes off the landscape. Fayt didn't know if she meant to be critical or kind. "Didn't draw his sword. Didn't even ask to see a written confirmation of Woltar's permission. Invited to contact the Dragon Brigade for us. And he let you go, just like that."

"He's different from Albel," was all Fayt could say.

"That he is," Nel said musingly as she smiled.

Sure enough, Tynave and Farlene, as well as the cart as a mode of transportation, left them behind in Arias. It was not until they were alone that Nel finally spoke to Fayt about what their journey was for, and where it was leading them.

"Do you remember when I told you I sent out all of the Crimson Blade at Arias on reconnaissance, the day that we harbored Albel and you?" Nel said as the left Arias for Peterny on the back of a nondescript merchant's cart. The cart rattled loudly, and the merchant, pleased with the extra money he was making out of empty room on the cart, had no desire to eavesdrop or accidentally catch a few words of Fayt and Nel's conversation.

This was why Fayt was anxious to know what they were doing. If Nel didn't even trust Tynave and Farlene, then what could be happening?

"I remember," Fayt answered.

"Well, as luck would have it, the group that went to Sanmite actually found something interesting. Word had it around town that something strange had appeared in the Mosel Ruins, so my team went out themselves.

"When they came back, they told me of a ghost that appeared, speaking a language they could not identify as New Aquarian, Old Aquarian, or Glyphian or otherwise.

"The ghost, based on sketches, is a middle-aged looking woman with light hair cut short, wearing strange clothing they could not describe. And every time they approached her, they noticed that she would say the same pattern of sounds over again. Sound familiar?"

Fayt thought for a moment. "It sounds like a recording," he concluded.

"It looks like our old friend Blair," Nel said slowly. "I recognized her, the instant I saw the team's sketch."

"But that's impossible!! Our worlds are separated, that was the whole point of everything…"

How dare Blair show up in our world, Fayt thought angrily. She may have been their friend, and freedom would have been impossible without her, but the very suggestion of her presence dredged up memories, old and painful. Of his destructive ability. Of everyone he had lost, and everyone and everything his universe had lost, under the strings of their hateful, callous puppeteer who dared call himself their Creator.

Nel sighed. "You're the only one who can understand her. For all we know, she could be congratulating us on our new independence. But we can't assume."

"No," Fayt said with a steely gaze, his jaw set. "We can't."

Of all the memories of those darkened times, one in particular haunted Fayt during the silent ride to Peterny, along with the painful regret he'd now come to associate with it.

He hadn't been the one to catch Albel when he was struck by the Vendeeni rifle. No, that had been Cliff, of all people.If Fayt had only been there for him at that moment, then maybe everything would have been different. Maybe his father would have even lived.

But if only Albel could have seen Fayt's face as he blacked out, if only Albel could have heard Fayt pleading for him to stay awake. Then maybe Albel would love him now.

Fayt closed his eyes, pretending to Nel that he wanted to take a quick nap. But inside his mind he only saw the sterile surfaces that reflected coldly in the ship's most isolated sector of the medical wing.

He had initially held onto Albel's hand so tight that the nurse had to ask him to loosen his grip or she couldn't accurately examine the injured arm. An IV needle was taped below Albel's collarbone, a suitable vein found after the computers on board had assessed the Glyphian's circulation system and nutrition needs. He breathed slowly, drugged deep into sleep by anesthesia administered after another diagnosis.

Albel looked peaceful, as he had never before appeared to Fayt in his life at that time. He had impulsively thrown his life aside for Fayt's sake, and now as he lay dying, he was almost smiling.

He's not dying, Fayt had thought with a silent and furious tear budding up in one eye. Fayt blinked that tear away. What if Albel woke up for some reason and saw him crying? You fool, Fayt thought, and laughed bitterly at the perfect irony of using Albel's words. You're not going to die, if that's what you wanted. I won't let you.

As if to defy that certainty even more, Fayt reached out and stroked back Albel's hair from his face. It was soft; Fayt's fingertips curled around the individual strands as they slipped from his fingers. Albel would have to wake up and yell at him for doing something like that.

"You know that weapon was designed to kill," he heard Maria's voice tell him in monotone as she came into the room and sat down. By now, surgical robots were working furiously over Albel's open shoulder.

"The only thing that stopped him from dying immediately was his alien cell structure. No one has ever survived a shot from one of those rifles…"

"I don't care!" Fayt said unevenly, louder than he'd intended.

"From what I understand, Albel is a cruel and selfish young man. You must recognize this."

"No matter what you say, it doesn't change the fact that he risked his life for us."

"But only out of lingering possessive, and most likely psychotic, thoughts towards us; he said so himself," Maria said, voice intelligent and cool.

"I don't see it that way," Fayt told her heatedly through gritted teeth. His eyes had never left Albel's face.

"We need to talk about Moonbase."

"I'm not talking about anything until he's better."

"Fayt, I understand that you lost your father. Trust me, I'm feeling the loss of Dr. Leingod too," Maria said as her voice wavered. "But seeing this man live will not bring Dr. Leingod back."

Fayt narrowed his eyes. "You think that's what this is about? That I've lost my mind and I've confused my father with Albel? That if Albel gets better, then that might somehow save my dad? I don't have anything more to say to you right now, Maria."

He'd meant for her to get angry and leave him—them—alone, but she did not stir. She only watched, alongside Fayt, as the surgical mechanized arms worked with less and less efficiency, with the stats on the computer screen climbing to higher and higher critical levels, and Albel's breathing hollowing out.

"How much do you want this man to live?" Maria then said. "He's just an inhabitant of a backwards planet, Fayt."

Fayt glowered. "How can you say that?!" he jerked his stare up to hers.

"You fought alongside him, Maria! How can you continue to think of him as something less than human? After all, aren't you the one all upset about being a lab rat? When it comes down to it, isn't that the same thing?!"

Maria looked at Fayt.

"You know, I wonder if he'll be angry when he wakes up and finds himself incapacitated in a hospital bed. He doesn't seem the type to lie back and heal quietly, I don't think."

Fayt watched warily as Maria reached out to touch Albel's wounded shoulder. The robots gently nudged her once, then moved aside, their feverish work halted.

"What are you doing," Fayt told her, warning in his voice. Hearing the insistent beep of the stat panel, he gripped Albel's hand tighter.

"I'm not making any promises," Maria told him as her hand glowed. "I told you I can't completely control it yet. This will, most likely, go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong."

But Fayt only watched in silence as the power of Maria's curse took Albel's life into its hands.

The cart jerked, and Fayt opened his eyes. "We there yet?" he mumbled as he looked around and found his answer. They were still in the plains between Arias and Peterny.

"You've only been out for half an hour," Nel told him languidly. Whether it was because of the heat or out of boredom, Fayt couldn't tell. "Go back to sleep. We've got nothing else to do, and I wouldn't pass up the chance to rest if I were you. You look dreadful."

"Thanks," Fayt told her dryly and closed his eyes again. Because the nurses had shooed Fayt out after they decided Albel would be taken off anesthesia, Albel never did realize that Fayt had been watching over him as he healed. And then everyone assumed that Fayt had let Albel stay because he was being kind, when in reality Fayt would have done everything in his power to keep Albel with him.

When had he last seen Albel? When had Albel last talked to him? Over a week ago before they'd even arrived at the Black Brigade's home in the first place. And of course, there was the painfully obvious time he had not talked to Fayt, when he left for Airyglyph Castle without even a spare thought.

Fayt felt a sudden surge of anger swell up inside him and settle into his chest near his heart. How dare Albel leave without me, Fayt thought, for not the first time since he'd heard of Albel's departure. I've been with him for everything. Everything. How could he just ignore me like this?

Fayt breathed out to relieve the pent-up pain in his chest, and Nel looked at him funny. "What's gotten into you?" she wanted to know.

What if he hates me for being with him?

"I'm just worried about what we might find," Fayt told her.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: While Time Will Tell belongs to me, Star Ocean does not. I'm running out of fun ways to do this...

Chapter 8

Albel had not returned for five minutes before he found something to be displeased with. This was not that unusual, but he had never been so displeased at once before.

He'd left. Fayt had just left, and it bothered Albel beyond anything. Never mind that Albel had done the exact thing to Fayt only forty-eight hours earlier.

"We missed you at dinner, Albel. Don't tell me you've given up eating again," Helgrave said as he stooped in the doorway of Albel's bedroom. Albel looked up blankly from his bed, where he had been silently anguishing at the particular moment Helgrave walked in.

And that Helgrave did, noting the current state of the room with raised eyebrows. "Hmm. Only two chairs overturned, desk just a foot or so from its usual position, and the bookshelves and wall hangings mostly unharmed. I guess this means your experience at court wasn't too terrible?"

Helgrave looked up, and noticed the stormy expression in Albel's darkening eyes.

"Or was it so bad that abusing your worldly possessions couldn't fix it?"

Helgrave righted a chair, and pulled it close to the side of the bed and sat down. "C'mon, it can't have been that bad. You were just talking to the King, weren't you?"

Albel sighed heavily, and mindlessly toyed with the blond end of one of his braids. He began to unwind the cloth tape from his hair, slowly and meticulously. "And what makes you think you can?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Fix this. You and Sieg always were the ones messing around or doing something ridiculous just to draw the tension away from…" Albel's voice cut off as he let half of his hair fall loose. He began on the other side, pretending to attribute much more attention to the matter than he really did.

"So you're thinking about when we'll have to visit our mum."

Albel groaned, and dropped his braid. He hadn't even entertained the horrid thought yet. "I want to die," he muttered half to himself as he continued his attentions.

"Don't tell me that. Last time you said that to me you weren't kidding around."

Albel sat up straighter and peered contemplatively at his younger brother. "I am your Captain. You would have to kill me if I commanded it."

His hair now loose, he reached for the steel-bristled brush at his bedside.

Helgrave deftly grabbed Albel's right-hand wrist, and pushed the bared forearm in front of Albel's gaze. "I'd rather follow Sieg than find you like this again."

"Shut up," Albel snarled, pulling his exposed wrist away from Helgrave's grip. He took the brush in his hand, and gently worked undone the knots that had inexplicably managed to tangle into his hair.

"So when are we going to visit mom and Rozie?"

Albel glared sideways at him as he finished, setting the brush aside.

"I think you need to talk to her. It would be good for the both of you."

Albel practically snorted in reply, as he gathered his hair into a black tie at the base of his neck. "You think it's so easy, don't you?"

"Look, I know that she," Helgrave frowned as he searched for the words, "attributes a great deal of the fault in certain unmentionable events from ten years ago to you, but…"

Albel removed his hands from the loose knot of the tie. "Helgrave, get out of my room."

"Albel…"

"Out."

Helgrave took a long sigh. "Yes, Captain. Don't slit your wrists tonight, okay?" he said as he exited the room.

Albel stood still until he heard the door close behind his younger brother. It is tempting, he thought as he felt the lonely grip on his heart tighten. Very, very tempting.

Feeling no better the next morning, Albel questioned the his aunt's mental state and wondered if she was fit to rule Aquaria. Word had gotten to him that she wanted her nephews present at King Airylgyph's wedding, no matter what chaos the Circle of Voices was in.

"Albel, you don't think there's at least a good possibility that we might run into Lady Nel," Helgrave chatted casually, "and your friend when we go to Aquaria? Lady Nel would be sure to be at the wedding, right?"

Albel glared pointedly at his younger brother, which was enough to stall Helgrave's ceaseless prattling. He was not in a mood to talk. The interior of Airyglyph Castle made him uneasy every time he had to walk its dark, walled-in corridors.

These halls were dark, preferring the red glow of fire to the white clarity of an open window. But of course they would be designed this way; how else could a nation of Dragonriders best show reverence for its scaled companions than to model its most important building after a dragon's home?

The soot stung Albel's eyes, and he longed for a breath of fresh air as he tasted the choking smoke in the back of his throat. Despite the sensation, he swallowed, any way to fight the compulsion to retch.

And here he was, going further and further into the cavernous bowels of the castle, to where the dragons themselves roosted, taking their own place in the home of Airyglyph's king. Even better, the next breath of fresh air he would take in would be from the back of one of those infernal beasts.

Arrogant child, those serpent-slitted beacons smirked as they drowsily looked up from their scattered beddings, remotely curious as they were at the passers-by. Were it not for the superseding allegiance of their human companions to the Glyphian king, Albel had no doubt the dragons would take delight completing their Marquis' work. Ten years was only a blink of an eye to their kind.

Helgrave, blissfully ignorant of Albel's increasing agitation, nodded to a dragon-soldier pair that crossed their paths. "Hullo, Gareth, Lilimander," he said politely. This ignorance was not Helgrave's fault-- Albel could never have his little brother know how much he still feared the creatures.

Lilimander sneeringly snapped his teeth in Albel's direction. With a hissing laugh, the dragon looked back at his young soldier companion and continued on, while Albel had to make a conscious decision not to stop mid-step. How had a young soldier ended up with Lilimander as his companion?

The encounter with Lilimander stayed with Albel even as he stilled himself and mounted the dragon given to him for the ride to Aquios, a much older one tolerable enough to accept Albel's presence without the usual amusements the younger dragons and Lilimander indulged themselves in.

Albel sighed, and hesitantly gripped the neck of the older dragon and rested his head on the pebble-grey skin. When the dragon didn't shake him off, his mind wandered to a place he would have given anything not to explore.

"Lilimander," a much younger Albel, white-eyed in fear, greeted the immense beast. It easily towered over Albel, but only took the opportunity to snort teasingly into the boy's shoulder-length hair. Albel was six.

"This is your child?" Lilimander said skeptically as he turned to his companion, Albel's father.

Glou gleamed with pride. "My eldest. Albel."

"Ack!!" Albel exclaimed as Lilimander roughly nudged Albel on each side of his ribcage, and then once square in the chest. "What was that for?"

"Glou, your child is too thin—has he been eating properly?"

Glou laughed at that. "Don't worry, he has plenty of time to improve his strength before he takes the Accession of the Flame."

Albel normally would have protested that he was strong, but he was too caught up in looking at Lilimander. The longer he examined the creature, the more frightening it seemed, but the more beautiful in that fright as well. The gleaming fangs, sharpened to nature's perfection, the striking array of wings, the scaled skin that looked smooth as glass even as the sunlight reflected off the myriad of ridges.

Lilimander snorted a small flame, and Albel let out a nervous laugh. Then Albel screeched as Lilimander's snout snapped close over the cuff of his shirt, lifting the boy into the air.

After a moment of letting the boy dangle, Lilimander set the boy down on his back.

"Father? Will I have a dragon pair of my own soon?" Albel wanted to know, as soon as he was comfortable upon Lilimander's saddle.

At this, Glou laughed, as did Lilimander. "Already eager to join the ranks of Airyglyph's soldiers! When it's time, Albel, when it's time…"

Albel remembered his father's thoughtful, appraising gaze.

"It's all right to let go, Lord Albel," the dragon he rode said to him softly. Albel, with a slight start, took in his surroundings. They were in the sky already, and there was nowhere else Albel could go.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Despite everything I make Fayt and Albel go through, Star Ocean still isn't mine...

Chapter 9

"Wake up, sleepyhead. We survived," Nel said and nudged Fayt awake. The bright freshness of late morning greeted him as the merchant's cart slowed to a stop.

Fayt blinked in his surroundings. "Peterny already?" he muttered.

"Indeed, Peterny already. Let me thank our gracious transporter, and we'll be on our way. He's not going as far as the Sanmite Republic lands, and that's our next destination."

Fayt sleepily languished in the cart a moment more while Nel thanked the merchant with five gold pieces, his most familiar tongue. The cart lurched, and Fayt realized it was time to get moving.

"So Astor's men ambushed you inside the very inn that I've placed so much faith in, in the past," Nel said conversationally as they trod the cobblestones, ignoring the calls of merchants at their shops and booths.

Fayt nodded as he caught sight of a woman selling rolls. He had been hungry, but the topic of their ambush put thoughts of food aside. "Can you trust the proprietors anymore?" he wanted to know.

"I know it would be best not to," Nel reasoned, "but I can't let this slip by without a word from them. It's on the street to the Sanmite Gate, anyways…" Nel drifted off, her attention snagged by something else.

Fayt followed her gaze to a pair of men ahead of them, standing off aggressively. They were quickly gathering a large crowd. "A fight? Did the guy try to steal something, or what?"

Nel narrowed her eyes, and frowned. "Wait a minute," she said while thinking. "I think I know those men. Come on," she said, grabbing Fayt's arm while pushing through the throng.

She only stopped when she had a clear look at both of the scowling young men. There was another at one of the men's' side, hopelessly trying to mediate.

"House Izmaria," Nel murmured, "House Amarantine," and she nodded in the direction of each respective representative.

"And…?" Fayt asked, but at that point he caught the heated exchange between the two young men, the peacekeeper roughly shoved aside.

"You're a traitor to the peace!! Would you rather your family's blood spill again, or perhaps your own for this meaningless hatred?!"

"What business have you throwing about 'traitor', traitor to Aquaria?!" The young man from House Izmaria tossed his head in smug disdain. "Half-breed lover! Why don't you marry into Airyglyph yourself if you're so fond of them?"

Nel sighed, a little too loudly in impatience. "Have people forgotten already that Airyglyph and Aquaria are in fact capable of peace?" She had said it loudly, in a lull in the excited murmurings of the bloodthirsty crowd, and had caught the attention of the two arguing men.

Rather than try to cover herself up, Nel took this as if it had been her intent all along. She abandoned Fayt to walk into the center of the space between the men of the differing houses.

"Ah, good morning my Lady," the young man from Izmaria said in an embellished, drawn-out mockery of decorum and manners. "How low the noble name of Zelpher has fallen," he sneered at her. "Keeping that," and the young man spat out a word that could only be used to offend, "safe under the Crimson Blade's protection."

Cold fury rose in Nel's retort. "I'll have you know that's the nephew of the Queen you're insulting." Her words fell like violent sleet. The young man only smirked in response.

Fayt felt as furious as Nel, but he also knew that this sneering young man was picking a fight, a fight that might put her position in the workings of Aquaria in danger. It seemed impossible that she could not see that.

"Nel, come on," Fayt pleaded in her ear. "He was just baiting you. Don't you get it? " Fayt looked up at the young men, and spoke to address them instead.

"Hey, this is a marketplace. People have business to attend to here. If you've got something you want to say, then take it up somewhere else. You won't gain anything from making a spectacle of yourself."

This seemed to silence the man from Izmaria, he glared indignantly at Fayt, Nel, the man from House Amarantine, and the crowd in general before turning on his heel and storming off to a less populated area of the market.

Nel glared up at Fayt as the crowd, deprived of its entertainment, dispersed. "I should think that you would also have the courage to come to Lord Albel's defense," she said heatedly.

This struck Fayt as painfully as if she had just turned one of her blades on him.

"Why would it matter if I did?!" Fayt said quickly, too quickly. "I mean, these people are just looking for a fight. There's nothing honorable in that," he said.

"Still," Nel told him.

They were getting ready to leave when the young man from House Amarantine approached them. He had golden blonde hair tied distractedly back into a braid, and glasses that might have given him a distinguished, scholarly appearance. But still looking harried and flustered, he nervously began chatting.

"Oh my, things must be getting bad if Izmaria's taking it outside the Circle," he sighed, and bowed slightly. "I'm so sorry you were brought into all of that, Lady Nel, and," he paused, "um, Lady Nel's companion."

Fayt supplied his name, and the young man nodded appreciatively as he fiddled with the contents of what appeared to be an overstuffed book bag. "Alex. Alex Barker, from House Amarantine, as you've already learned. I was supposed to be meeting my sister here when that lowlife appeared…"

And he looked around as if she might appear from the faces in the crowd at any moment. Then, with a startled jump, he said quickly, "Oh, but my Lady Nel, I'm holding you up from whatever business you must attend to, aren't I? Please excuse me. I'll not keep you any longer," and he bowed and disappeared without another word. But before he was completely hidden in the crowd, he took one long look back over his shoulder, a thoughtful examining look that seemed to be appraising Fayt in the silver gleam of his glasses.

Fayt frowned, and wanted for some reason to talk with him further. But by then Nel had lost interest in the previous events and was once more making her way down the street. With one final look himself, Fayt turned away and followed in her step.

The next day, the fields of Aquaria had given away to the foothills and tangled forests of the Sanmite Republic. It was inside the shelter provided by a large face of rock that he and Nel made camp that night.

"I'll watch first tonight," Fayt had volunteered, and soon after, the boy had opened the leather book and peeled the fiber-rich paper from its crisped folds, and scanned his eyes over the first line of the next letter.

_To my esteemed companion-in-arms, Captain Glou Nox of the Dragon Brigade, from your lieutenant and close advisor, Duke Vox._

_The front I am posted on is holding up well; that is, to say, nothing of any strain on the men is occurring. But forgive me for interrupting you with some thoughts that have been plaguing me here, in these hostile lands._

_Glou: how age has come upon us!! I remember my son Jason and wonder how much time has fooled me. I swear that the last time I looked over my shoulder he was just a babe in Lydia's arms. And the last time I looked into the mirror, I was a young soldier. It is this distress over old age that brings pen to paper, Glou. For with old age comes interest in the next generation, the Airyglyph that has yet to dawn. An age, surely, where Arzei will rule with power that Airyglyph has not known for years, but it is with your confidence that I say this. I beseech you to allow my boy Jason to train with your Albel, in the interests of the future of the Dragon Brigade: good captains such as yourself are hard to come by, and harder still are faithful subordinates. Such loyalties are formed young, as you may remember fondly with the first Border War against Greeton in our youth. It would be fruitful to form such loyalties early, before the taint of politics clouds a commander's judgment._

_I must admit to some ulterior motives on my part: my boy wishes to continue the Vox family tradition of serving in the Dragon Brigade—Count Woltar has dropped hints that Jason's understanding with animals would lend him towards the Count's respective corps. If Jason communicates such with the ordinary creatures, surely such an understanding would be better used with the intelligent beasts that are the Dragon Brigade's source of strength?_

_Truly yours,_

_Duke Vox_

Fayt sighed, reclined his head until it touched the comforting cool stone at his back, and looked up at the unfamiliar stars. Every time he glimpsed a frame of Albel's past, the ultimate picture only became foggier.

He was away from Albel. He knew why Nel did not want to wait for Albel, besides the obvious immediacy of their crisis. She would not be able to be near him. Fayt, on the other hand, was isolated and incomplete. If he reached out with his hand, he would never be able to graze his fingers against what he was searching for.

He could only tell himself for so long, after all, that he did not care that Albel had abandoned him. It hurt, but still he could not help but dart his gaze around, wondering if just maybe Albel had followed them.

Staring into the darkness, there was nothing lurking out there that could harm him or Nel. The only pain came from a place they could never escape. If there was anything in his power he could do to only be with Albel again, Fayt knew that his heart would not allow him to refuse.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Star Ocean isn't mine! Don't hurt me…

Chapter 10

"This way, please," a blond-haired female servant said demurely—guardedly, almost—as she led Albel and Helgrave to a corridor of bare but exquisite tile, of the finest in wall detailing but nothing gracing those transparently patterned canvases.

They were not in the Royal Aquarian Castle, even though the expense to which the hallways had been constructed was equal. But in the unsettling emptiness of these rich surroundings gave Albel the same dripping agitation of an open mausoleum.

House Sylphide was not the cheerful place of light-filled banisters and comforting aquamarine silks that Albel wanted to remember. It reminded him of the foreboding and echoing nothing of the Shrine of Kaddan.

"Albel, are you doing all right? You look like you need to sit down or something," Helgrave muttered in his ear, a sentiment that he would rather no one else hear.

"I suppose you are my brethren," they heard a pinched soprano address to them.

Albel and Helgrave found the source to be, of all people, a young girl wrapped in stockings and an airy flounced dress. Her stern features and dark hair contrasted harshly with the periwinkle of her gown. She sat at the window, and only made the barest acknowledgement of their presence with her movements.

"Rozie," Helgrave sighed, and moved forward immediately. Albel hung back, watching his younger brother approach the little sister he had never met.

Ten years of warfare had affected even their sister Rozalin. She shrunk away from him with a disdainful pout.

A bitter scowl marred her delicate features. "And look at you. Albel the Wicked, my own flesh and blood. I could never be more ashamed," she commented. "I'm surprised you're civilized enough to stand in here without feeling embarrassed of your Airyglyphian upbringing. If you both are representative of Sieg, I am thankful that Crimson Blade rid him from existence."

"I beg pardon?" Albel said, dangerously lightly. The suffocating walls had stilled his barbed tongue.

But Rozalin felt she did not need to reply to Helgrave. As if hearing soundless footsteps, she delicately raised her head towards the doorway across from the window.

"Oh, mother, Albel and Helgrave have arrived," she said to the enchanting wraith that materialized in the doorway.

The ghost smiled as if any movement would rupture her paper-white skin. Against that chalky complexion, her Aquarian red eyes and silver-spun hair seemed harshly out of place.

"How long it has been," she whispered as if it were her loudest. "Thank Apris you've finally grown so," she said as she took a wary few steps towards Helgrave.

"My son," she said; too frail for an embrace, she took his arms in her own. "Remember how Jason used to tease you so much about how thin you were as a child?"

"Mum, I'm not…" Helgrave began with a wary look over to Albel.

"How is the Vox family, by the way? Lydia never writes. And where are Helgrave and Sieg—oh, they didn't get into trouble again, did they? What did they do this time? And when will your father be getting back?"

Helgrave felt robbed of words for a moment. Then he breathed in, and said, "Mum, I'm sorry. I _am_ Helgrave. Albel is behind you," he grimaced slightly.

Ephemera squinted at the thin creature. "The twins' sense of humor must have rubbed off on you at last. You were always so serious!"

"No, mum, really…"

Ephemera's gaze took in Albel's drawn features, quivered at his metallic limb. Something intangible registered in her eyes, and there was a presence that was not in her before.

Before condemnation fell from her lips, Albel found it was easier than he thought to disappear. He simply left.

It was a misted and lonely walk that Albel took to Aquaria Castle, where Helgrave and himself would be staying—it felt more at ease with him to stay in the place that reminded him of the time he had spent with Fayt, than to be in House Sylphide's compound and be reminded of the decade he had spent burdened with guilt.

But not even the distance could calm him. Ignoring the Aquarian eyes that followed him and the suspiciously large entourage of guards that led him to his rooms, the past few minutes he had spent with his family stirred heavily inside of him. It was not his intention to ever return, after he had left Elicoor II behind that eternity ago.

The room was dark, lit by moonlight. It took Albel longer than his soldiers' training allowed, for him to scan the room. When he did, he stepped back quickly.

"What are you doing here?" Albel, too stunned to say much else, demanded.

The boy pushed a stray lock of blue hair away from his face in a strikingly vulnerable gesture. "I…" he began, unable to meet Albel's gaze. "I just heard you'd be here. And we didn't exactly talk much for a while."

He made a face, one half between grimace and sorrow. "I guess I missed you. I don't know." As if to affirm this, he shook his head in confusion and reached up to his temples, his pale fingertips masked in his hair.

And just as simply as the boy stated he didn't know why he was here, Albel realized that he didn't know what to do.

"Fayt," Albel said, softer than he had intended to say it, but just as soft as he had meant it.

At this, the boy looked up. "It's too dark," he then said suddenly. "I can't see you. Not really."

Before he could quite understand what had happened, Albel found the boy in his embrace. They had both closed the distance between them, but Albel realized, with a sense of anxiety, he had been the one to open his arms.

With a sensation as sick and sudden as if he had just been struck, Albel's grip instantaneously loosened. What had he done?

There, for that one hesitant moment, Albel felt the absolutely convincing presence of Fayt in his arms. He did not pull away, did not protest. Only looked up in silent reply to the tremor of Albel's pulse.

"There's something wrong. Albel, tell me."

Albel's reply paused in his throat. "This," he finally choked.

The boy shook his head. "No, there's nothing wrong. After all…" And the subtle suggestive inclination of his head, the wanting absence in his eyes, convinced Albel of something he would have believed impossible.

Their lips brushed once before Albel felt his obsession playfully pull away.

"After all, he's such a pretty boy, isn't he?" Fayt then said, with a voice that was not his own. With an uncharacteristic smirk on his lips, he threw a lazy gaze at the smoldering fireplace and the red of the hearth bolted up his features, just in time to see them melt into a stranger's.

Albel was immediate to draw his sword. "Who in," he exhaled, too furious even for his epithets.

"Now, now, Albel, is that any way to treat your cousin Caina?"

It was a girl. A teenage girl, still adolescent and sprite-like, with cropped azure hair and a cruel twist to her lips.

"I don't have a cousin named Caina," he growled. "Especially not one with blue hair."

Her eyebrows shot up into her bangs. "Whoops, my bad. It's just that Fayt's so cute, I can't let go of his appearance that easily. You understand," she remarked obliquely, and in a flash her hair turned the dark hues of House Sylphide.

"What are you?" he said, then reconsidered. "No. Never mind that—I'll just kill you and it won't matter," he said as he drew his sword up to her throat.

And in an instant, it was Fayt's pulse that beat against that gleaming blade. "Albel," the girl said, her voice Fayt's and full of defenseless fear.

"That won't work," Albel said carefully.

The girl's visage changed again; her hair grew out to shoulder length, and a honeyed, earthy tone shot through her roots. Her stature spread to shoulders wider than Albel's, standing taller than him. But the face was young, even younger than Fayt's.

"Albel, come on, don't do this to me. You know I..."

"Don't you dare say it," Albel hissed at the mirage of a teenage boy. "You're not Jason," he said as a tremor shook through him. "Whatever you are, I'll end you. How you could know enough to toy with me like this," he began.

She giggled, returning to the distorted feminine form that mocked Fayt's. "Even after all that time you spent in my dimension, and you can't figure it out. Don't worry, my little Albel, I'll come back later once you've thought on it awhile."

She started to simply walk out, then paused and threw her piercing stare over her shoulder. "You know what? Fayt's so cute, I think I'll just borrow his form awhile. You won't mind. Still confused? Let me give you a hint: I'm the reason why you have that arm."

When Albel's blade sank into the wall behind her head, she was already gone, as convincingly as if she had never been.

He laughed ruefully to himself. "I'm going mad," he said quietly to the empty air. He had conjured Fayt and created a being from 4D space. Anything insane enough to satisfy the raging in his veins.

But then why Jason, he wondered as he grimaced and pulled his blade back to its sheath.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Star Ocean is not mine. Of course.

These next few chapters are kind of short-- so I'm posting more than one at a time. greyrondo

Chapter 11

The nightmare was different.

"Jason," Albel cried out with all of the ambivalence absent from the terrified shouts he had accepted waking up to. But with the echoes of his suppressed memories clamoring in his mind, his eyes darted open in beat with his heart's sounding thunder.

A memory treaded the surface of Albel's focus as he gazed around the slowly familiar room. "Jason," he said again, this time in waking.

Jason of the Vox family was a young boy of twelve, with cropped chestnut hair and three months of advantage in height and weight—which seemed to make all the difference.

"Don't worry, Albel, it's only a dulled blade. It won't hurt you, not really."

Easy for the boy to claim when he had Albel pinned on the dirt of a vacant sparring ring.

Albel scowled and kicked his fellow soldier-in-training off. Then he sheathed his sword and dusted himself off, before turning his back to the aggressive young noble.

"C'mon, Albie, aren't you gonna fight? You're such a wimp."

Albel stopped, and waited for Jason to catch up with him. Then he flew around, with his sheath as a dull club to at least strike at the boy who had tormented him incessantly from the instant he had appeared on the Dragon Brigade's training grounds.

If only Jason had not taken the blow and managed to strike him in return, just below the pectoral muscles in the center of his chest.

Albel sank to the scraggly mountain dirt, scrambling for his breath.

At that moment a cold mountain wind picked up and howled in the rocky crags at the silence between them.

"Got ya, Albie," Jason sneered as he playfully planted his foot on the nape of Albel's neck. "Think you're so tough just because your daddy's the Captain. Whatever. You know what my dad said? That the new king's got big plans. He's gonna choose his leaders based on ability, not on lineage. And that includes you."

Suddenly Jason laughed with sick inspiration. "Think of me as encouragement to succeed, Albel. I'll always be close behind you. Slip up, and you'll feel it. Can't have such a girly coward for Captain of the Dragon Brigade, now."

"What did you say to me?!" Albel snarled, forcing Jason off of him. He rolled to the side and crouched, catlike, as he returned to a defensive stance.

"What're you going to do, Albie, are you going to use that sword on me? I'm so afraid. I'm surprised you can even lift it, skinny as you are."

Albel was young, but old enough to know to curse his Aquarian blood for the thinness that weakened him so in comparison to Jason.

"All right, boys, no sense in tiring each other out before we've even left for Airyglyph," Glou Nox's voice called out over the dusty practice yard. There was the hiss of grain on the wind, and suddenly the world expanded again until it was no longer just the bare-dirt arena.

Autumn was coming to Kirlsa, still warm as it would be throughout most of what Airyglyph considered winter. The pleasing temptation of snow drifted down in the northern winds from the mountains, but it was not enough to fend off the sun for more than a moment.

"Aren't you lucky," Jason muttered triumphantly in Albel's ear as they got to their feet; their provoked brawl was now nothing more than a bored scuffle.

Albel saw Sieg and Helgrave, nine and already cutting up behind their father's back, and wordlessly brushed off Jason as he jumped the gate to leave the practice yard. No need to motivate Jason for round two later on.

And his mother was there too. Smiling crookedly in that strange and intelligent sense of humor that saw a wry comment in everything, her hair pulled back so as to feel Kirlsa's warmth on her face—she had never learned to take for granted the perennial warmth, and always spoke with mock envy when she heard of more seasonal weather from Aquaria.

The kiss that Glou and Ephemera exchanged was enough to elicit a typical reaction from Sieg and Helgrave, and then Albel knew it was time to go. His parents were required in the royal court.

"Be waiting for ya," Jason said in what was interpreted by Albel's parents as a farewell.

That was always how it was, Albel resented silently. But then, shortly after that, nothing mattered.

A sixteen year-old Albel cradled his head against the threadbare pillows dyed in humble and empty beige. He was in a room that had not changed for two years, his bedroom. He had experienced too much of change to want to bother with it for anything else.

The closest feeling to curiosity he could muster was spent on the unfamiliar white linens wrapped around his right wrist. The wrappings extended all the way up his arm.

It had not been easy to slit those veins, he thought as he stared at the bandages in disappointment. It had required him to hold the blade with his teeth as he pierced the lucid skin under his wrists. All that work, for nothing in return. And now he was exhausted. It was not quite fair.

Why did Helgrave have to be so inquisitive. Another five minutes, ten minutes perhaps. And Helgrave had been so angry. Sieg, quiet Sieg, had simply disappeared from the doorway only to materialize a moment later with bandages and healing runology.

And now his arms were sheathed in long sleeves, as Helgrave had ordered so that Count Woltar would never know. But Albel always wore long sleeves. It was the only way he could be warm; he would never go near fire.

A pair of knocks. Albel did not so much as look up—it would of course be Helgrave and Sieg. They entered uninvited, two mirror studies of the same features, growing stronger while Albel withered away.

They each took one of his hands in their own: Helgrave reviewing the wound on his right, Sieg meditating over his lifeless left. Trapping him like this was the only way they could be sure he was at least aware of their presence.

"Your hair's growing long again," Helgrave remarked. Although it was addressed to Albel, the comment was truly for Sieg. Albel never replied.

"I'm surprised it's grown back so fast," Sieg replied near inaudibly. But in the silence, his clipped voice was a shout.

For two months after Duke Vox returned Albel's shell to his remaining family, the boy had jumped at a breath of wind, shied from the blows of sunlight. Fire would render him wide-eyed and paralyzed. And he cried out against his own sleep.

After the funeral, after their mother's belly had swelled with an infantile ghost of Glou Nox. After Count Woltar had been given temporary leadership over the Dragon Brigade, and after the Count took into his own the Nox family lands and lordship over Kirlsa. After House Sylphide reclaimed its faraway daughter, suddenly and suspiciously requiring Ephemera's presence in the Circle of Voices.

After Arzei had schemed himself onto the throne, after the former King Airyglyph's death was allegedly brought about by Greetonese assassins. After relations with Aquaria cooled following Ephemera's return, following rumors that Crimson Blade's Zelpher had been killed by a Glyphian blade.

After everything, Albel simply stopped living.

"But you're still too thin," Helgrave commented.

"And the scars," Sieg said as his eyes morosely traced Albel's collarbone, "will never go away."

"Come on, Albel," Helgrave finally sighed. "What are we going to do. We're all that's left of our family—Rozalin probably doesn't even know that she's half Airyglyph. The war with Greeton is only getting worse. Albel, Jason is coming back from the front. Count Woltar can't head both the Dragon Brigade and the Storm Brigade any longer."

"Albel, listen to us," Sieg told him. "As much as we hate to admit it, we're only thirteen. We can't do anything. But you can…"

Albel did not even stir.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean. Star Ocean owns me (not really).

From greyrondo: Albel and Fayt aren't getting back together just yet-- but don't worry! In the meantime...

Chapter 12

The young man who entered Albel's room without so much as a word or question of invitation was tall and tan, with the strained muscles of one who has seen war. His chestnut hair fell in disordered waves to his shoulders. His voice deepening, he spoke aloud Albel's name once. It was a breath of shock.

Albel's vacant gaze stared up from the ledge cut into the windowpane. His crimson gaze cut into the stranger's dark soundless reply.

"It's really you," the stranger composed himself. "I mean, I'd heard what happened, but…"

"Jason," Albel said in wary recognition of the ghost from his past. His voice was hoarse: there were few in the Nox's mansion—Count Woltar's now—that required him to talk.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, I actually," Jason stammered. He could not come to terms with this wraith that inhabited Albel's room. "I actually wanted to apologize. Can I sit down?"

Albel made an accepting noise in the back of his throat, and Jason took the chair that paired itself with the desk. It was too small for him.

Jason found his gaze fixating on the mottled violet scars knotted around Albel's throat. Then he recovered, and said, "I don't know exactly how to say this, so I'm just going to speak my mind. Being out in the field made me realize how much of a jerk I was to you. It's been three years since I last saw you, and it was immature and unnecessary. I returned here to take my Accession of Flame, and after that you'll be my leader. And…"

He is quiet. Albel watched Jason study his face.

"A leader needs a strong lieutenant to support him," he said as he leaned forward. "Albel, please tell me. Rumor is you asked Crosell. If I drove you to that decision, I…"

Albel's focus slipped after the mention of that name. He did not speak, did not move. Why had he even spoken to Jason, he wondered. But it was the first time he had wanted another person to hear his voice.

"Albel," Jason said with his voice saturated with regret, and moved from the chair to Albel's side on the ledge.

Jason's arms encircled Albel's emaciated waist. Albel collapsed, and Jason's hand moved to stroke his back meditatively.

"I'm sorry. Albel, I'm so sorry," he whispered as he fitted Albel into the curve of his arm and chest. Albel used Jason's strong form to brace himself against his own tears. It was the first time he did not simply let them fall.

"I'll bring you back, Albel. You don't need to be like this anymore," Jason promised as they sat in silence until the sun faded into the stars.

Albel was searching for Jason. The halls of his own home had become familiar again, even if the echo of his voice had not. He had not put on weight, but he had stopped hiding blades. He had not smiled.

"I'm glad Jason came home," he heard Helgrave say as his loud voice came from an open doorway. Albel stopped, his footsteps even more silent. "Albel's alive again."

Sieg made an impatient noise. "We've been here this whole time. Why didn't he talk to us? Besides, am I the only one that seems to remember how much of an ass Jason was to Albel? He was a jerk up until he left for the Greetonese front at thirteen."

Albel could not remember Sieg being so outspoken. But maybe he had just not been listening.

"War changes people, Sieg."

Albel slipped off to the seldom-used corridor behind the kitchens. There, he found Jason.

"You're getting stronger," Jason commented as they greeted each other with a friendly embrace. Jason's gloved hand skimmed Albel's right arm as they parted, and he had noticed muscle where there had only been bone.

But when his rough hands traced the muscle below Albel's collar, the touch had become electric instead of casual; their conversation, quieted instead of ordinary.

Jason's arm circled around Albel's thin torso, and silently put his lips to Albel's. Albel gave in willingly, as he had before. By now, their kisses had ceased to become awkward and adolescent as they learned each other's forms, and in a moment Albel's back was flush to the wall.

Jason breathed in raggedly, and as Albel sank to the bare stone floor, Jason followed. But Albel's instinct was still to shudder away from any contact with his scars; as Jason's hands wandered, he shrank back until their advances settled into a tangled and tight embrace with Jason sitting against the wall, Albel curled into his chest with Jason's hands safely at Albel's waist and in his hair.

"You know, now that you're getting stronger, you shouldn't feel like you have to wear loose clothing. I know you have scars, but maybe showing them will help more than you think. It's too hot to wear so much," Jason remarked wearily, as if even at that moment Kirlsa's unbearable summer heat was closing in on him.

"Maybe," Albel said softly. But he knew Jason would not press until he was ready. Jason had carved himself into his constant, his unwavering frame that held him even when Albel's slowly awakening world threatened to splinter. It seemed a terrible dream that he and Jason had hated each other when they were children, subject to the whims and rages of their families. Now there was none of that to take them apart.

"Albel," Jason then said. "You know I'll be taking my Accession of Flame soon. But the King wants you to try again. Now that you're sixteen, the right age…"

Albel felt his face drain of color as if caustic fire had incinerated all feeling. "No," he breathed, and pulled away from Jason. "I can't, you know I can't…"

Jason rose up onto his knees to stay close to Albel. "Listen, maybe since you've done it before and you're different now, they'll see that you've improved. And it doesn't have to be Crosell, it can just be any dragon. Albel!"

Jason framed Albel's drawn face in his hands. But Albel had retreated inside of himself. Jason's left hand slipped down to Albel's collar—Albel would surely react to a graze against his scars. But the fearful intensity in Albel's gaze only weakened, wilted almost.

Jason's fingertips skimmed in between the halves of Albel's shirt, loosening the ties as he went. His hands touched fiery rows of scars; Albel only leaned into the touch, eyes low.

"You trust me, Albel?" he said quietly as he gathered Albel's loosening shirt away from the young man's marred skin.

"I do," Albel breathed. He watched Jason's fingers track a path down the most tortuous of scars, the bloodied rivers that rendered Albel's left arm lifeless. It was with the maddening haze of obsession that Jason fixated upon Albel's wounds.

"You know," Jason said softly. "I'm glad you said that. That you wouldn't take the Accession of Flame again. I wouldn't want to lose…"

And Jason pulled him painfully tight. "I wouldn't want to lose my inheritance. The Airyglyph military is drawn thin. The King has tired of your emptiness, Albel," he chuckled softly. "And my father, two years later than he should have, has finally received his rightful position as Captain of the Dragon Brigade."

Sinking and anxious revulsion filled Albel's limbs, but he could not budge against Jason's grip. Used, toyed with, betrayed. He could not, would not believe that Jason's words had just truly been spoken.

"Understand it from my point of view, Albel," Jason said softly even as he stroked the gentle curve of Albel's stiffened waist, "I could not risk you snapping out of this mood of yours. I needed to break you myself. How does it feel, knowing that the only way people will care about you is if they can use you?"

"Let go of me," Albel insisted.

"You know it's true. Your father just wanted you to be a good Dragon Brigade rider for his sake. Your Aquarian mother abandoned you as soon as she could. Your brothers depend on you to keep the Nox name alive-- think I haven't heard them? And me... well, you know."

As Jason loosed his hold, Albel wrenched away with force he did not know he had. Jason slowly got to his feet, sinking in reverse motion as he casually swaggered to a superior stance. Their stares interlocked for a moment, but were interrupted by a terrifying shout from below. A messenger, with news from the front of the Greetonese war.


	13. Chapter 13

The Ubiquitous Disclaimer (I've been playing .hack//G.U.): I don't own Star Ocean. Which is kind of good, in some way or another… right?

This took a bit longer to write than I expected. But that's lucky chapter thirteen for you. That aside—thanks so much for the reviews, everyone, and please continue to voice your comments!

Chapter Thirteen

"Albel," Helgrave said quietly. Sieg watched their uneasy conversation nervously, his hands flickering around the hilt of his sword as if he could not find a suitable grip.

Albel said nothing. Whatever had occurred between he and Jason in the short time the twins had left Albel alone, they could only guess, but it had muted Albel's new and uncertain voice. And now Jason was gone, rushed away to the furies of war. Only he did not have to go far—Airyglyph's forces had weakened for an instant, and in that moment, Greeton had swept into the heartland of Airyglyph's sustenance, the golden fields of Kirlsa.

Helgrave looked at Sieg, and their thoughts reflected each other's as close as their appearances. They silently pleaded for another day, even another hour. Some time to grant them relief as they held a pathetic stand at the ancient Kirlsa Training Facility.

The building was rotting where it fell to pieces from its foundation. Airyglyph had not needed the relic for the reign of two kings. And now when its use was called for, it was perhaps the weakest point of defense, and at the same time to most necessary to defend.

If ordinary Glyphian custom had taken its course, Albel would have been immersed in the calculations of tactical warfare and raised to be as capable of a commander as any by his current age. Now was not the time for Helgrave and Sieg to remember this fact, but as they gazed out and waited anxiously for any sign of Greeton's advance forces, such a thought could not be kept from them

They knew that Count Woltar's squadrons were riding as fast as they could press their mounts, but wondered if they would be here quickly enough.

They questioned if Albel would even be able to defend himself, if it came to that.

"Helgrave, Sieg," Albel finally answered. "How many forces are approaching?"

"There are three squadrons. We're considering a couple of soldiers' wishes to go out as scouts to gather more information," Sieg replied.

"I'll go."

"What?!" The twins said in unison.

"I said I'll go," he repeated in the same quiet voice that had spoken aloud a moment before.

"No way! Albel, do you want to die?!" Helgrave refused. A sudden and sick realization struck him—perhaps his wild outburst might not be far from the truth. "Albel, Sieg and I aren't going to let you go out there. Right, Sieg?"

Sieg's gaze returned from the anxious mid-afternoon horizon. Storms from the sea gathered over the skies. "We're no match for Greeton. Even if we did go to scout, and we were discovered, it would come to fighting. As if we need this war to escalate even more."

"It's not happening," Helgrave insisted, but for once his echo had outspoken him.

Albel's silent feet crushed the short stalks of sunburned grass. His living hand rustled against the sprigs of new growth unfurled from trees. Across the clearing, Greetonese forces collected themselves in one last camp before they charged against Airyglyph's dangerously weak hold.

He was not supposed to be here.

But they could not spare the soldiers, and besides—he longed for death. He had convinced Helgrave and Sieg, and even a part of himself: that the aching desire for the abyss had fled him. But he could not deny now that it had resurfaced into his conscious thoughts.

But had he come here to spy, then, or to die? That was what he had been abstractedly pondering when fate made his decision for him.

An imperative, impersonal cry from the circle of strange mechanic soldiers—those engineering men of war that were as foreign to Albel as Airyglyph's own Dragon Brigade.

They slackened when he did not fight. Perhaps Greeton believed he wanted to negotiate.

A burly sub-commander twisted his rusty beard distractedly in his fingers as he examined the thin excuse for a Glyphian that had been forced to kneel at his feet. The attention Albel received was far more than he had planned for: he sat subdued in the center of Greeton's advance forces, as if he were a prized prisoner of war.

Which he supposed he technically would be. There was a strange detachment fogging his mind, even more so than the typical lethargic haze that Jason had fleetingly chased away. Maybe the thought of imminent death: would it be painful? Would it be equal to the pain his father had felt? Maybe the thought of his own demise had desensitized him to his surroundings.

He wondered vaguely if now was the time, then, to gaze into his own spirit. Far from being nothing there, he had the feeling that he simply did not know what to do. Ever since his failure at the Accession of Flame, Helgrave and Sieg—and then Jason—had hovered over him so that he could not possibly succeed in suicide no matter how he tried. Now that death was a distinct possibility, he did no know what to do with himself.

Albel smiled, chiding his own inadequacy. Leave it up to him to even wreck his own death.

"What is this?" the burly sub-commander snapped at his subordinates, who quivered. Albel found him slightly humorous, too. Woltar had always claimed that Greeton depended too much upon its technology in a battle, and Airyglyph had only to force them to abandon their machines. This overweight, soft and rough-looking man, coal-coated and sweaty from the force of his labors, proved that.

"I take the time to assign you to lookout, and you squander your efficiency by bringing me this servant boy," the sub-commander growled.

"He was watching us," the soldier insisted.

The sub-commander rolled his eyes. "Of course he was. He doesn't even look strong enough to go the distance between our camp and Airyglyph's hold."

He appraised Albel with a scowling glare. "Boy, stand up."

Albel smiled as his guards gave him enough space to comply.

Grunting as if he had made a decision, the sub-commander broadened his voice to turn the spectacle into a rallying point. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link," he orated with his arms wide and didactic. "So shall this law apply to kingdoms. Give the boy a sword."

Albel found the whole display ridiculous and unnecessary. As a sword, ill-fit to his hand, forced itself into his disaffected palm, a strange sense of security filled him.

As he glared sideways at the scuffed and stamped ground, something sudden overwhelmed him just as unavoidably as had that edge of blade now in his hands. He had no intentions of being vain. But he would not allow his death to come this way, from this weak, fattened and lazy man.

"Oh, boy, by the way," the disgusting sub-commander called out to him as he picked up a sword of his own. Apparently Greeton's technologies were, for the most part, reserved for warfare on a scale grander than this. "I always like to know the names of my opponents. You seem hardly worth it, but…"

"Lord Albel Nox."

A giddy rush of adrenaline coursed through Albel as he felt the first resistance of sinewy skin against that blade so generously provided for him. He could not recall having ever trained with the intensity that his edge demonstrated: the pull of the sword was his breath, the sing of steel, his ears, the blaze of bright metal, his eyes.

He closed his eyes for a half-second of improvised and unfamiliar bliss as the blood of a young soldier's throat dripped a dying river down his thigh, dotting on the dirt below. Was this joy, he supposed.

Perhaps. Joy, happiness, ecstasy. Unrefined and raw, these were emotions he had not felt in an eternity. He delighted in the primal and soothing elation the massacre coursed through his veins.

And when the lifeblood of all his opponents had left red-spattered kisses on his collarbone and crimson sweet caresses across his pure linen tunic, he threw his head back and laughed.


	14. Chapter 14

So, after what seemed like an eternity without my PC, I'm back! It had to get a new optical drive sigh… but that's all in the past now. Here's the next-to-last chapter of Albel's flashback. These were harder to write than usual…

Disclaimer: Albel is not mine. I'd like to say that's because he's Fayt's, but sadly, he doesn't belong to me, either.

Chapter 14

When Count Woltar approached the silent, still grounds that Greeton's camp had overtaken, he wrinkled his brow in unbridled confusion. He already smelled the smoldering iron stench of blood on the wind.

"What happened?" he demanded from his soldiers, who could not answer: they knew as little as he did. Having ridden hard for hours on end, their concentration and energy were as frayed as the endurance of their mounts.

But they sighted a solitary blood-streaked figure, standing in statuesque petrification in the center of the massacre. The fallen scattered the clearing like bruised rose petals.

"I happened," Albel said quietly, a weary smirk lighting up his lips.

"You happened," Count Woltar repeated from his position high upon his saddle. But Albel's figure triggered a vague sensation of fright. Woltar had seen war, of course. And he had seen blood. But to see the blood of so many others soaking the skin of just one young boy made him ill at ease.

And since it was Albel, soft-spoken and traumatized, that unease unwound itself a far ways before it was finally checked.

Albel took the Greetonese sword and thrust it into the ground. "A useless thing, now," he murmured nonsensically.

Woltar stared at him in silent contemplation.

"Albel Nox. You've disappeared from Airyglyph's plans, and yet here you are."

He had to pause before he could continue.

"You have just murdered scores of mostly unarmed Greetonese soldiers. You have a decision to make: choose your own self, and what you have done will go down as a crime. Choose to return to Airyglyph, and you have single-handedly brought to Airyglyph a victory."

Albel chuckled. "Is that how it always follows?"

Woltar frowned. "History is written by the victors, however they choose. That's no secret."

Albel regarded the field. "To Airyglyph," he decided.

"Then come with me. We need to do something about that arm."

It was no secret that Count Woltar adored the tools of warfare, and collected and studied them with near fanatical curiosity. But laid out on display as his collection was, even Albel's increasing numbness could not help but take notice.

"I thought it would be appropriate to use your father's study to contain my collection. I hope you find it a worthy tribute to his strength," Woltar said to Albel as they walked the old Nox mansion's halls.

Albel made a wordless sound of polite consent. The surging elation he had felt on the battlefield was quickly slipping away, leaving the shy and self-conscious Albel behind. He still reeked of blood; no amount of washing could eliminate that curse until that night, when he could devote more time to cleansing himself of the stain.

"Airyglyph produces such beautiful and varied instruments," Count Woltar mused. "You'll find my favorites are by far the oversized weapons. Something about their unrestricted power," Woltar continued.

"What a pity that Airyglyph's military has organized itself so that wielding such weaponry is impossible. No soldier can bear a claymore, large-bladed halberd, long bow, sickle, or full axe while riding on the back of a beast. If someone were to create a third branch of the military, it would make this old man proud… and perhaps willing to share his expertise."

"Just get to the point, old man," Albel sighed. In an instant, it seemed, he was struck with exhaustion. He had no idea what Woltar was intending to do; he only wanted somewhere to bathe, somewhere to rest.

Woltar chuckled. "In time, Albel, in time. Now, where did I put that…"

He kneeled and shuffled around in a collection of small chests. "Oh, here it is," he muttered as he worked a nondescript case loose from the rest, about the length of a standard sword, wide as an arrow, deep as a dagger. "I wonder if it will fit."

"Go on, boy, open it," Woltar said, beaming with a quiet sense of pride in his own findings.

Albel kneeled on the floor and struggled to open the rusted clasps with just one hand. When he opened it, he stared. It was a long gauntlet, running as long as his tricep and ending in razor-edged claws.

"You'll never have to go through the danger of fighting with just one hand again, boy," Woltar said. "Touch it— can you feel the Aquarian runology coursing through it?"

Albel ran his right hand over the glittering steel. "I…"

He could not speak. With silent difficulty, he rolled up his sleeve and gradually worked his lifeless arm into the metal. His scars disappeared into a perfect sheen of silver.

Woltar crossed the room and picked up a wooden staff. "Don't worry, it's worth nothing. Try it," he said as he held it out parallel to the floor, at arm's length.

Wary, Albel closed his fingers around the pole. He cut through it like air. But more importantly, he had expressed the desire for his fingers to move again, and they obeyed him.

"Woltar," Albel said breathlessly.

"You're welcome," Woltar returned as he set aside the two pieces. "You'd best take it off now, though. You'll need to gradually let your body get used to it. Tomorrow, wear it for an hour. The next day, three. Increase your time with the gauntlet so that by next week, if need be, you can wear it for a full day. By the end of the month, you should be able to wear it tirelessly. Airyglyph needs you, Albel, but it needs you well-equipped."

Albel laughed at that. "What about my brothers," he said as he hesitantly took off the gauntlet. He almost did not want to; he had just been reunited with his left arm. For a precious instant, he had been complete again.

Woltar just scanned his collection. "I'll see what I can do," he simply said.

It was a day later, and Albel had just removed his gauntlet.

The spiderwebbed stone floor abrasive against his back, Albel braced Jason against his arm. But Albel's newly strengthening muscles, sore from his mad victory, could only succumb to Jason's insistent weight.

Jason's left arm pinned down Albel's resistance; his right drilled into the sensitive gully of skin between shoulder blade and collar. Albel laid defenseless this way, Jason straddled Albel's waist to keep him even more under his control.

"Why would that senile old man give you command? My father is the Captain of the Dragon Brigade now! Why would it go to you?!" Jason demanded.

"Get off me," Albel told him. He breathed in sharply, choking on the musty air. Jason had practically ambushed him in what was obviously an abandoned storage room on the first floor. Useless but curious antiques littered the walls and floors.

At Albel's protest, Jason smirked and feigned sorrow. "What? Albel, did I hear you say something? You don't want me? Is that really true?"

"I didn't say that," Albel murmured. He felt drained, and struggling against Jason only sapped him more. Even though it was now washed away, he could still feel the blood soaking his skin. But a memory not that much more distant alluded to the warmth of Jason's embrace.

"No," Jason said slowly, his voice slick. "Where's the Albel," he continued, "that killed all those Greetonese? Where's the Albel… that poses a threat to me? I don't want you. I want him."

Albel breathed in the musty air. "What are you saying," he wanted to know. "Jason, don't," he began. Jason fumbled at Albel's collar, dragging apart the clasp.

"You broke so easy, Albel. It wasn't even fun. Now I know why—you're so much stronger than you show," Jason said heatedly as he grabbed for the skin Albel would never let him fully see.

"I want to see your scars again, Albel. Does hiding them make you strong? I want them laid bare for me to take in, so you'll have nothing left."

Albel could still feel when Jason had held him tight against his chest, whispering quiet into his ear when he did not even feel the strength to stand. "Jason, if this is about the command, it's just…"

"No," Jason insisted. "It's not about that. It's about everything," he said with finality as he considered the mottled skin that wove itself over Albel's bare chest. He coldly traced the skin, following a ridge to above Albel's heart.

"Your heart races so fast," Jason smirked as he worked the tunic loose from Albel's shoulders. "And look at that. Maybe if this arm weren't so burned, you could fight me better, huh?"

Albel wrenched his eyes shut for a moment, sickness clawing at his insides. "Jason," he whispered as the young man's hands skimmed his belt.

"What? You want me to stop so bad, why don't you fight me? You can't do it, can you…"

Jason moved quickly, hands deftly working over Albel's hips. He gripped roughly, nearly leaving a chain of blue bruises where his hands had invaded.

Albel tried to struggle. But mostly he pleaded. "Jason, don't," he begged.

And then they both froze. Through the door left ever so little ajar, they could hear someone calling Albel's name. That voice was searching for him.

Jason paused, his hand heavy on Albel's thigh. "What to do, Albel," he whispered with a snicker. "Your brother Sieg is looking for you. Do we hope he passes this room by? Does he stumble upon us like this, or do I let you go? What's it going to be, Albel?"

Albel took in a deep breath to steady his protesting heartbeat. "Get off of me, Jason," he insisted.

And in that moment Jason slammed him hard against the floor. "The next time I see you," he whispered like a violent lover in Albel's ear, "I want to see all of you. I'll let you take that however you want."

With a batting eyelid of consideration, Jason ground his lips hard against Albel's for a crushing second before he pulled away quicker than Albel could react.

Albel curled up against the wall as he heard Jason converse casually with Sieg outside. No, he hadn't seen Albel. Perhaps he was outside, or with Helgrave? No? Well, best of luck. I'll tell him you were looking if I see him before you do.

Embarrassment and fury welled up inside him as he belted his slacks and fitted his shirt around his torso. And then the last thing he had wanted at that moment happened: the door opened once more, spearing a shaft of murky light over the sheltered antiques and worthless treasures until it struck him.

"Albel?" Sieg said in surprise. "But Jason just… Albel, why are you sitting there like that?"

Sieg took a single moment to stand there and think, before he deftly crossed the room and kneeled at Albel's side.

"Albel, you need to tell me what he just did to you. Now."

"I'd rather not," Albel said distantly in a voice that was hardly his.

Sieg rolled his eyes. "Okay, whatever. I know what's going on between you two. I may not say much but I'm not stupid. But he hurt you just now, Albel. The clasp on your shirt's undone. You didn't want it, did you. Did you, Albel?"

"No," Albel whispered. He hugged his lifeless left arm close to his body. How stronger he had felt with that metal gauntlet to make it move again…

"Why didn't you fight back, Albel," Sieg sighed in frustration. "Why didn't you just fight back?"

"Does Helgrave know?"

"Does Helgrave know what—oh. No, he's oblivious as ever. What's it matter, Albel?"

"It won't happen again," Albel promised.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean.

Chapter 15

"What are you wearing, Albel?" Helgrave wanted to know, his face guardedly blank. On the battlefield, he had no opportunity to see his brother, save to follow the trail of blood. Now that the both had retreated back into the Kirlsa Training Facility for the moment, Helgrave had the chance to wipe the blood from his claymore and comprehend the circulating rumors that the young Lord Nox had lost his mind.

Albel smirked smugly. "Traditional Kirlsan clothing, obviously," he retorted. He articulated the razor edge fingertips of the metal gauntlet. They flashed seductively in the filtered sunlight, tainted ever so slightly with the ruby glaze of the fallen.

"Right. Well, the Greetonese have been joking that Airyglyph is so low on men that a woman is commanding them."

"Does it matter? They still wet my blade like all others," Albel remarked. "Let them think I am insane. Who knows," he laughed, "maybe I am."

Helgrave opened his mouth to reply. But at that moment, a soldier seven years his senior, a lithe man named Kyle Jarvis, walked in with a lethal-looking halberd slung over his shoulder.

"Lord Helgrave," he said with a surprising amount of genuine respect for a thirteen year-old. "Count Woltar would like to speak with you. Apparently if you continue to hold your claymore like that, you'll sprain a wrist. Come on, I'll walk you over. Lord Albel," Jarvis bowed his head respectfully as he departed the room.

Now alone, Albel cast a judging eye on his surroundings. In the past, this facility had only been useless. Time had not been kind to it; it bore weathered scars like the most tortured of soldiers. Albel had even left some of his suffering there, three floors down in that empty storage room where Jason had nearly taken what little of himself he had left.

Perhaps there was a place for this building in the new Airyglyph, after all, just like him.

"Airyglyph and its fire, Lord Albel," he heard Jason's voice sigh behind him, the door shutting percussively beneath the sound. "So the rumors abound on the battlefield are true. I know I said I wanted all of you, but I did not expect you to comply so willingly."

Albel was slow to turn around. "Do you see my scars now, Jason?"

He stood there still, his navel exposed, his shoulders bare, the race of his upper thigh exposed full until it met the heavy hammered-metal belt.

At this Jason scowled. No matter how much his cruel eyes searched that pale skin, he could not see a single imperfection. "Interesting that Kirlsan clothes manage to cover all of them."

Albel laughed. And he sauntered forward, and cupped Jason's strong chin in a stronger grip. The steel summoned a single drop of dewy blood from the line of Jason's jaw.

"Is this the Albel you wanted, Jason," Albel breathed in conscious seduction. He pushed a little harder, drawing a fine bead of blood on his claw. "Huh?"

He offered Jason's blood to Jason's own lips.

"Go on, Jason. After all, you're only here to benefit yourself. Why not taste that which you so desire?"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you? They're saying down on the battlefield that you've lost your mind… Albel, I think you should step back and maybe--"

In a flash of metallic movement, Albel caught Jason's naked wrist between his claws. "But you'd rather me not. Aren't you eager to finish what you started?"

Albel wondered why Jason did not even move to defend himself. Then he noticed, of course. It was Jason's right arm that he endangered. A flick of steel, and Jason would never wield a bow or sword again. Maybe never even ride in the Dragon Brigade.

He caught the vibrating fear in Jason's stare in his own, and smiled.

Albel pulled Jason's hand to his own exposed thigh. With his other arm, he wrapped himself around Jason's shoulders. Now trapping Jason in this barbed embrace, Albel brushed his lips on the pulse at Jason's throat.

Then he wished at that moment that he had feeling once again in that hand: he would be able to feel Jason's blood trickling onto his skin, rolling off into droplets on the floor like the panic he relished inflicting in his former lover and tormentor.

"Albel! Albel, you're hurting me!!" Jason exclaimed, yanking back in reflex.

"Am I really," Albel smirked. He barely felt the resistance of bone and sinew.

Jason pulled back; the wound had freed him. His eyes were in pale and paralyzed frenzy, his mouth a stuttering silence. He took in the absence where there had once been a strong hand, refused to believe what his own eyes were telling him, and looked again.

Jason's blood still soaked the stone floor as the door burst open.

When the fierce stench of blood struck Sieg, it was as if he had not just returned from the battlefield, as he had never caught that sharp sickening smell. He blinked and stepped backwards once, before crossing the threshold.

"Sieg," Albel said politely in greeting. He stared out of the window, taking in the battle that played out on the plains. "Is there something you needed me for?"

"You have lost your mind," Sieg breathed queasily. His eyes met the frozen Jason for a still instant, but then Albel's voice shattered the ticking second.

"I beg pardon?" Albel answered.

Sieg looked hard at Jason. His eyes a brimming glare, he cast them down on Jason's quailing form.

"Sieg, Sieg," Jason pleaded. He cradled the stump and severed hand in the left arm that remained.

"Don't ask me for pity," Sieg said coolly. "Aren't you a soldier? Albel, Greeton's sub-commander requested to meet with you. He is outside now."

"Sieg, you know better than to be so rude to a high-ranking officer. You should have brought the officer and his guards in immediately."

"My mistake. I just wanted to give Lord Vox a moment to compose himself. If that proves too much for him right now, should I show them another chamber?"

Albel looked once at his brother and smiled ever so slightly. "If they want to speak with me, they'll speak with me in my rooms. Currently, that entails this suite. Let them come inside."

"Of course," Sieg said as he bowed himself away from Albel momentarily.

The Greeton sub-commander was a walking sheath of machinery. Flanked by a squad of guards, he grimaced sallow at the sudden surprising scent of iron.

"Just a battle wound," Albel explained casually as he waved his articulated claw in Jason's direction. "We're waiting on a healer. You understand," he added.

The Greeton sub-commander nodded. "Yes, yes, I know all too well the ills of war," his voice slickly agreed. "Lord Albel Nox," he bowed low in greeting. "I'm sub-commander Jaune."

Albel narrowed his eyes. Such displays of supplication were unbecoming of a man of this one's station.

"This man is in need of healing and you harbor him safely. Forgive me, Lord Nox, for allowing my mind to entertain the legends my men have been whispering."

"Speaking of your men," Albel said, slowly turning towards the creature as he chose to ignore the blatant flattery, "what is it that convinced you to seek audience with me? Allow me to guess," he said, taking in the wormlike appearance of the skinny but sagging flesh of the sub-commander. Were all Greetonese commanders given to the decay of their natural body, preferring only the strength of their machines?

Albel articulated his claw, and then vowed to himself to improve his swordsmanship as well. Then he continued, "You wish to negotiate some triviality or another."

The sub-commander was quick to stammer in. "No, no, not a triviality. I'm talking about the war itself. Or this battle, anyways."

"And… your proposal?" Albel demanded calmly. Behind the back of the sub-commander, his eyes met Jason's.

"Mercy," the sub-commander said simply and pitifully.

"Mercy," Albel repeated. "Elaborate."

The sub-commander cleared his throat. Obviously, he was not used to being talked down to by a child. "Well. What is war but business," he stretched for a bit of time to think, "and what is business without deals between merchants. I wish to purchase safety from your sword. I am willing to pay in the currency of victory."

And Albel laughed. "Clever with words, aren't you, Jaune?"

The sub-commander laughed modestly.

"I believe loyalty a hard currency to accept, Jaune. But I also believe in mercy. Like the young Lord Vox here, for example."

Albel circled the sub-commander and finished his meandering path at Jason's side. His fingertips brushed up against Jason's stricken skin, but it was only to pluck the reddened stump into the air for the sub-commander to see. Jason breathed in raggedly.

"L-Lord Vox?" Jaune stuttered.

"What a pity," Albel practically sighed. "The only son of Duke Vox. Perhaps one to inherit a high-ranking position in the ranks of the Dragon Brigade as well, if not for this arm. He will never be able to fight again."

He let the arm fall. "Jason Vox's life is over, ended by one careless slip of the sword. Being as merciful as I am, though," Albel said slowly.

The sub-commander gasped.

"You just killed one of your own men!" Jaune exclaimed over Jason's cry.

Albel felt one last tremor rock Jason's empty shell, and let it pass before he retracted his gauntlet from the spot that had been Jason's cruel heart.

"Which brings me to my first point. Call me biased, but I feel a certain amount of disdain for traitors," Albel said as he laughed harshly, sloughing off Jason's body like dead skin. "Even if they are willing to sell their armies to Airyglyph. But one traitor is as good as another, right?"

Jaune's complexion drained. "That's a strong word to use, Lord Nox," he offered meekly. He backed up to be closer to his guards. "Wouldn't you think so, Lord Sieg?"

Sieg stood in his quiet manner, hands folded behind his back. "Subtlety does not suit you, sub-commander Jaune."

"Tell me, Jaune, what is the punishment in Greeton for treason?" Albel asked.

Jaune paused before answering. "Death, Lord Nox," he finally had to answer.

At that, Albel smiled. "Look outside, _sub-commander_. Look carefully. What do you see? Go on, what are you standing there for? What are you afraid of?" he laughed.

Shaking, Jaune left the protection of his guards and came to stand by Albel's side by the window. "Battle, Lord Nox."

"Indeed, battle. But look closer: you can just make out the silhouettes of your own men. Tell me, Jaune, what are those brave soldiers doing out there?"

"Fighting."

"Dying. For Greeton. For their commanders. For you, if you had your way."

Jaune had no reply.

Albel sighed. "Your Greeton is my Airyglyph's enemy. However, I do respect the soldier out there that gathers the strength to wield his blade against me. And therefore, I do respect Greeton."

In a flash of caught sunlight, he drew his sword out of its sheath and through the sub-commander's middle.

"And so I spare Greeton the tiresome task of executing its traitors," Albel told him, his blade now at Jaune's throat.

Behind Albel and Jaune, the quiet sound of a scuffle silenced the Greetonese guards.

"Sieg, you didn't kill them, did you?" Albel called over his shoulder.

"No," Sieg replied as he held each of the guards at sword's deadly edge. "I merely found use for your swords after all, even though I still prefer my new axe."

"Good," Albel answered. "Now, Jaune, you have a decision to make. You can bleed to death here, or I can end it by slitting your throat."

"I don't care how you play your twisted games! What about my men? Are you going to kill them too?!" Jaune demanded as his fingers scrabbled at the fatal wound in his mid-section. "You are mad. How can Airyglyph keep a wicked demon in command, knowing how thirsty you are for blood?!"

Albel scowled, and dragged his blade across the exposed skin.

"Wicked," he then laughed. "Albel the Wicked," he said, toying with the words aloud. "Sieg, release them."

The guards drew their weapons. But Albel did not bother with another fight. "If you fight, you'll die. Slowly, painfully, enjoyably. Leave now in peace, and spread word until it reaches the ears of your monarch, of Albel the Wicked."


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: Star Ocean does not belong to me. But that would be pretty cool, I must admit.

Chapter 16

Half-away from dream, Albel felt a casual hand linger on his cheek for a moment before pulling away. "Fayt?" he murmured drowsily, happily.

"Helgrave," a voice disappointingly corrected.

Albel bolted awake, insides flaming from his sleepy mistake. "Helgrave, what are you doing? I'm trying to sleep," he demanded.

"I could tell," Helgrave said as he pulled out the desk chair. "I heard you from the connecting room." He waited patiently for Albel's sudden scowl to weaken.

"And anyways, you should be grateful I'm even trying to fill you in on what's happening with our family, since you left me with the burden of explaining everything. Mum really didn't try to keep her eye on us after she left—she denied for seven years or so that Albel the Wicked could really be 'her Albel'. So, she's back to hating you again."

Albel made a wordless noise that could only be vaguely interpreted.

"But it gets better—Circle of Voices doesn't next meet until after the wedding, so you're off the hook until then. All we have to do is play 'dignified Glyphian court nobility' for a week or so. You look so ecstatic," Helgrave commented dryly.

"What's the matter with her, anyways? Why must I fulfill an obligation I have no place in?"

Helgrave was quiet for a moment. "You know when she first thought that I was you? And then she saw and seemed to remember, oh wait, that's Albel? She doesn't really have that firm of a grip on reality. I've had to read between the lines a little, but I don't she ever got over losing dad. Ten years, it just built up on her. She couldn't take it anymore…"

"Really," Albel said quietly.

Far away, Fayt carefully folded the last letter into hiding, his face a mask. The sun slowly rose shimmering and fiery over the desert sands. With the reemergence of the sun from its nocturnal interlude, Fayt was glad for the comparative shelter of the Mosel Ruins.

The last letter had been simple and short. It had nothing to do with Albel, but everything to do with his father. It was a letter from his mother, Ephemera, sent to the front of some territory scuffle between the northern extremes of Airyglyph and the Sanmite Republic.

She had been pregnant with Albel at that point, and felt the distance between herself and Glou even more than ever. Fayt felt embarrassed and partially ashamed after the first few lines, trespassing on something so private, that he could not continue.

Nel had insisted they travel through the night, after she recalled out loud an embarrassing moment in their previous journey over the dunes, when Fayt found himself faltering as heat exhaustion besieged him.

Nel had just laughed him off as he proclaimed he was stronger now.

And now she stirred, waking up from her turn to sleep. The desert had proved itself tiring even at night, even with the full glow of Elicoor's moon to guide them.

"Fayt, it's time for you to sleep. I'll watch now," she said, voice still hoarse with dreams.

Fayt shook his head as he got to his feet. "I won't be able to sleep," he told her, "until after we've seen whatever's down here."

Only the second part was a lie. He would not sleep well until he saw Albel again—he didn't count his recurring nightmare.

"I understand," Nel said. That was strange—normally she would insist he rest, but she seemed just as anxious as he was.

The sacred silence of the Mosel Ruins took their voices away; while they passed the archetypal statues that remained from the ancients' games.

As they crossed the threshold of the deepest room, a slow sense of foreboding spread like poison through Fayt's limbs. He physically stopped, momentarily paralyzed by the sensation of it.

"Fayt?" Nel said as she turned around to face him. But the feeling had already passed, and he was shaking his head to clear it away.

Nel's voice was enough to trigger the flickering mirage that materialized before them.

"Blair," they both spoke in unison.

But of course, it was only a recording like Fayt had suggested, and could not reply.

"Fayt, Maria. Everyone," the flitting image said in Blair's matter-of-fact voice. "As I record this your world will soon separate from mine. I don't have much time, of course. You need to know that there are eight developers from Sphere who are trapped in your world."

Fayt's eyes went wide in disbelief.

"What's she saying," Nel murmured to him. He didn't reply, only took out his communicator and held it to her so that, sharing it, she would comprehend Blair's strange news as well.

"None of them are a part of the team I introduced to you, and not all of them are like me— but how many of them are truly faithful to Luther, I cannot guess."

"Oh, no," Nel said to herself.

Fayt silently agreed.

Blair continued. "Their existence in your dimension is curious, and worrisome. Incarnated with godlike powers in your world as they were, they will still maintain these abilities even when our worlds are severed. They have no names in your world, but go by an epithet reflecting their positions on the development team. Unfortunately, the corporation and their own transient natures prohibit me from providing you all with their physical appearances.

"They are as follows: first, the Historian. She is in charge of the historical database, which is reincarnated in your world as the logs on your communicator. But of course her knowledge is exponentially more vast.

"The Tamer. She developed field monsters. Her brother is the Metaphysicist, who developed the stat calculating system.

"The Lover is in charge of the affection system; he and the Justice, programmer of the sense of law and order in NPCs, were close on the development staff.

"Close in function are the Lightseeker, side quest programmer, and the Engineer, scenario writer. But the Engineer was closest to the Kriegsbringer, who developed the battle system."

"The last is the Incantatrix, who originated the concept of symbology in your dimension."

Blair took a moment to breathe. "I know that's not much information. But you're most likely wondering what to do about them. With Sophia's Connection gene, you will be able to temporarily link once more to my dimension. Only when they're gone will your universe be truly free from intervention."

And then she was silent. "I'm trying to think of anything else that will be helpful. Hmm. If you find the Incantatrix, she will provide aid. The Engineer can change her form at will. And…"

Then her face registered an expression of shock, and her visage was gone.

"Fayt?" Nel murmured. "I thought it was over."

"I did too," Fayt shared her sentiment breathlessly. "We need to tell everyone. I need to tell Albel," he found himself adding.

"We need to inform the Queen," Nel added.

"But we don't even know where they are. They could be on the far edge of the Milky Way galaxy, just doing whatever…"

"Or they could be here. I'm not taking that risk. We need to return to Aquios right now. You can inform Maria and everyone up in the stars as we travel, can't you?"

"I recorded it. I'll just send them the video file."

"Fayt, what is a video file? You keep on talking about recordings and I have no idea what they are."

Fayt stopped. It was Albel who had been with them on Moonbase, and Albel who he had to explain the concept of recording and video files to. Nel had encountered them, certainly, in their subsequent adventures, but she had never spoken up until now.

"A recording. Like I called it earlier. A device makes a lot of continuous pictures and copies whatever sound can be heard. It's what Blair used to give this message to us, and my communicator took another recording of Blair's recording so that I can send it to Maria and Cliff and Sophia and everyone else."

Nel rolled her eyes. "Drawing sounds so much simpler, but I can see how it is necessary and beneficial."

"That's what Albel said."

"Did he really," Nel commented airily. "Are you sure you don't want to rest now? I don't know if my patience can contain me until the sun goes down, but I would rather not carry you back to Surferio."

"I'll be fine," Fayt insisted.

"Of course you will," Nel replied. "Because you're going to rest now. I swore to young Helgrave Nox that I would take good care of you. I don't think he intended for you pass out on the Mosel Dunes."

"When did this happen? And why?"

"In the five seconds you were rummaging through your bag to make sure you had everything you needed on your person. He said it was in Airyglyph's best interest. I wonder what he meant by that…"

"All right, all right, I'm going to sleep now," Fayt interjected, before Nel could hypothesize any reasons. He smiled to himself as he settled into a corner that wasn't too dusted with gritty sand. He knew he would ache when he woke again, but that was the least of his concerns.


	17. Chapter 17

Albel and Fayt, reunited at last!! Comments? Wondering what the heck I'm thinking with this fanfic? Reviews are much appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean.

Chapter 17

The Aquarian gardens were beautiful; not even Albel could ignore their tranquil enchantment. But Albel sighed for patience, and tried desperately to ignore the ill-fated conversation penetrating his solitude. He admired Helgrave's determination to make Rozalin love, or at least not hate, her siblings, but even more he regarded it as an immense waste of time.

He, as well as Helgrave and Rozalin, were dressed in the traditional blues of Aquarian weddings. He wore a rich shade of indigo, while Helgrave and Rozalin wore more lighthearted cerulean garments.

"Lord Albel?"

Without so much as a start, he looked up. It was Alex Barker, the young man from House Amarantine who had made himself known the first full day that Albel and Helgrave had arrived at Aquarian court. He called himself an ally; he swore his full support to Albel.

Which only caused Albel to wonder—not for the first time—if there was something in Aquaria's fabled waters that drove its people mad.

Albel sighed. "Don't call me 'Lord' in private, Alex, and I won't feel the need to do the same for you. And we'll save breath that could be better used to get to the point. Congratulations to your sister, by the way," he said. It was Alex's sister that was marrying the King.

He was too well aware of the only reason that he was soft on this Alex: he looked so much like Fayt.

"There's something I need to say to you: only you, if you don't mind!" Alex added hastily as Albel rose to pull Helgrave into the conversation.

On principle, Albel had decided from the beginning that Helgrave was to be as equally informed about Aquaria's going-ons, just in case Albel somehow unearthed a way to slip his younger brother onto the seat of his inheritance.

But Alex's distress made Albel sense immediately that there was something more at hand, so he instead tilted his head in curiosity. "Then speak your mind before your exclamations draw unwanted attention," he said with a forgiving smile. One he would have reserved for Fayt.

"Oh!" Alex exclaimed, then winced to himself as he reminded himself to control his volume. "Right. Um, I'm not certain how to present this. But have you witnessed the presence of a strange girl, Albel?"

Albel raised an eyebrow. "The word 'strange' would suit most of the female population. Is there a particular type of strange that you mean?"

Alex paused. "Quite strange. More to the point, beyond the limits of what is considered normal, or even possible."

Albel studied him for a long moment. "What… would you have me understand from your words?"

Alex lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. "Albel, I'm not really…"

"Lady Nel!!" Helgrave and Rozalin's voices burst out simultaneously.

Albel glanced up as Alex Barker respectfully drew himself up, in time to bow to the red-headed woman's new presence. But then his eyes lit upon the one he had truly looked up to see.

He watched as Fayt's eyes trained on Nel. Lady Nel bowed her head respectfully in return to Alex Barker with the slight surprise of recognition, and then she quickly excused herself so as to speak with the Queen as soon as possible. And then Alex Barker impulsively, strangely, decided to go with her, if only to accompany her as far as the castle itself.

Albel held his breath for a moment as Fayt's gaze followed Nel's quick departure.

"Fayt," he called, interrupting the boy's dazed reverie. He resisted the reflex to scowl as Fayt's stare did not even falter.

"Leingod!"

Fayt snapped to Albel's voice. "Albel…?" he said then, and hesitantly bowed his head into the shaded arbor. Shimmering sunlit water cast up light on his features, accenting his shadowed eyes.

"Albel? I haven't seen you in forever," Fayt then said, struggling to keep his voice even.

Perceiving an uncertain awkwardness in Fayt's voice, Albel found he had nothing to say.

After a moment of that silence, which Albel noticed painfully that Helgrave and Rozalin both observed, Fayt stammered for something to say. "Look, I'm really sorry that I left without telling you, but I have to tell you."

"Really," Albel answered flatly. "Should it wait for another time?"

Fayt felt as if Albel's gaze would murder him if it could. "I suppose it should," he replied stiffly. Inside, he quaked fearfully. This was not in any way how he had imagined—fantasized, but he would never admit it—his reunion with Albel.

Was he simply angry? No. Fayt had dealt with Albel's anger before. This was something else—the fire that suddenly extinguished from Albel's eyes proved it. He would have rather Albel looked at him any other possible way than with that placid, jaded expression.

Albel, I missed you, the words weighed on Fayt's tongue. "Albel…"

"If Lady Nel has already made her way to the castle, then perhaps it would become certain people to join her," a clipped and cold child's voice interrupted them. "And perhaps it would remind certain other individuals of their duties and stop dallying."

Rozalin. Fayt did not know her; they had not been introduced, but from those stark and soon-to-be-beautiful features he guessed that this was the youngest Nox.

Albel locked Fayt's gaze as a simmering scowl bled into his features, and wordlessly rose and turned to walk away in one smooth motion.

"Oh, right," Helgrave said suddenly. "Hey, Fayt, why don't you go join Lady Nel. We'll catch up with you in a bit, okay? You see, you arrived just in time for the wedding…"

"The what?!" Fayt exclaimed. "Oh, wait, that's right," he amended as the memory flooded back into him. "See you," he said breathlessly as he ran to catch up with Lady Nel and the young man they had met by chance meeting several days before.

"Lady Nel," Alex Barker was saying as Fayt matched their stride. "And Fayt Leingod. I do wish our first meeting had been under kinder circumstances. But what better place for meetings than a marketplace?" he laughed lightly. "What task could you have been sent on so close to the wedding? Any ill weather, and you would have been unable to attend."

Nel cleared her throat. "I'm afraid it's Crimson Blade business, and confidential. The Queen will be informed, and if she deems it necessary for others to know, she will publish the information."

"You were heading out to the Sanmite Republic, weren't you?" Alex pressed, all while straining to keep his disposition light. "There's nothing in the way of ordinary dissonance out there. Was it something else?"

At this, Lady Nel cleared her throat. "Alexander Barker of House Amarantine. I appreciate your concern, but the knowledge of Crimson Blade is neither necessary nor relevant to your situation in Aquaria," she told him sternly. "Even if your sister is betrothed to the King."

Alex looked pained. "Would it have anything to do with the strange lights in the sky we experience a few months ago?"

Nel paused dangerously. "Do not make me send you away, Alex Barker. But your queries tire me and you are stepping out of bounds. Leave us, so that we may speak with the Queen."

Fayt watched Alex's humbled form slip away.

"I had completely forgotten that the wedding was so soon," Nel sighed in slight aggravation. "I do hope that her Majesty will receive us, because this is certainly—potentially, at least—more important than our petty politics."

"Yeah," Fayt agreed. He was overcome with an inexplicable sense of dragging dread.He silently followed Nel into the immaculate halls of Aquaria Castle.

"Your Majesty!!" Nel burst out as soon as they entered the listening chamber. She interrupted a flurry of flowers and fabric, prayer and poise.

The Queen took one last look at the scroll a nobleman was showing to her, murmured a few words to him, and dismissed him before turning her attention to Nel.

"Lady Nel Zelpher, Fayt Leingod," she regarded them. "What perfect timing. I do hope you are rested well enough for the day's festivities?"

Nel sighed. "Fear not about us, my Queen. There is urgent news we bring. News that I would rather you heard under more private circumstances," Nel added pleadingly.

The Queen closed her eyes for a pondering second, and then motioned them and her closest advisor into a small side chamber. It was the Queen herself who clicked the door shut, and then regally stood waiting for Nel and Fayt to begin.

"Your Majesty," Fayt said as he suddenly found his voice," there's eight people here from the other world," he explained, knowing she would guess immediately what he meant, "or… perhaps here anyways. We're not sure, but Nel and I fear for Elicoor's safety."

Fayt and Nel waited for a full minute, watching the Queen's oddly serene expression. "Well, of course they're here," she said then to them. "Or at least two that I know of."

Fayt looked in wonder that Nel had not voiced her raw, dumbfounded expression.

What?

"Yes, the one who calls himself the Metaphysicist was kind enough to come clean and reveal his true identity to me, as well as that of his sister, the Tamer. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that otherworldly beings had not only flawlessly integrated themselves into House Amarantine, but one even wandered into the middle of peace agreements between Aquaria and Airyglyph. I am referring, of course, to the sister, not the brother."

"Alex Barker," Fayt said suddenly. "It's him, right?" he asked the Queen.

The Queen nodded. "I'm surprised he didn't say anything to the both of you personally."

Nel paused with consideration. "He tried to, your Majesty. I just assumed he was being nosy. My apologies, my Queen."

But the Queen shook her head. "Fear not. Unfortunately, we all have a part to play in today's ceremonies, so I ask that the both of you rest and make yourselves presentable. The celebration following the ceremony would be a perfect opportunity to speak with the bride and her brother about their current situation, if I may voice my opinion."

"Thank you, your Majesty," Nel said, bowing low.

Fayt stumbled to perform a similar act of respect. "Thank you," he said.

And then, suddenly, he was left to his own thoughts. The chaos of the wedding was merely a far-off murmur compared to the turmoil that rattled his mind as he moved towards the room that he had by now assumed to be his.

Perhaps because indigo was so far from the warmer spectrum of Albel's normal clothes, perhaps because he was not used to seeing so little of Albel's form, he felt that Albel had closed him off during their too-short meeting.

But he had been beautiful. Cold, but beautiful. Just as he had been when they had first met. Fayt had been so startled, simply by Albel's appearance, and repelled because of Albel's confrontational attitude, that Fayt's spite had taken over.

From the beginning, Fayt had made Albel disregard him, despise him, maybe even hate him. Why else would Albel have felt the need to ask that ridiculous question that night?

Why did Albel have to ever ask that question, Fayt wondered. Why did Albel have to insist on sacrificing his life for Fayt, why did Albel have to be so easily desired. Why did Albel have to be?

He vaguely wondered if Albel was perfectly conscious of every subtle offense and every subconscious seduction. If so, did Albel enjoy toying with him and then lashing out at him?

Get a grip, Fayt shouted at himself. Just because Albel didn't embrace you the second he saw you, doesn't mean that he wants to kill you. Especially not in front of Helgrave and Rozalin, Fayt added to his inner commentary. Yes, that's what was going on. Next time we meet, it'll have to be alone. I'll tell him how I feel then.

No. Maybe not. But at least hint at it. And maybe that will be enough.

Not too far away, Albel stopped in the castle's hallway and watched as Helgrave and Rozalin moved on. The Aquarian garments he wore, despite the silk that constructed them, crawled on his skin and weighed down on him as if they were an ill-fitting, second skin over his own. Perfect, but not his. He wanted desperately to be rid of their stifling fibers.

But even more, it was all of Aquaria: the cultivated gardens, the marble and water and the court that hid itself behind etiquette and custom. Another time, and another place, and he would have been able to give Fayt the greeting he would have chosen.

And only then Albel realized he had stopped. There was no place that would permit such a thing.

"Fayt," he murmured under his breath, and continued along as the walls closed in around him.


	18. Chapter 18

From greyrondo: for those of you who might or might not be happy with how this chapter ends, know it's for a very good reason! Just trust me…

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean, or claim to.

Fayt sighed, and leaned his head back until the pillows supported him. He had perhaps five minutes of solitude left to him before he had to be present for the wedding ceremony.

Apart from Albel and his brother, he had seen no others of the Glyphian court. Were they not coming, or were preparations so demanding, so exacting that everything goes well, that he simply was not involved enough to see their faces?

A knock on the door.

"Nel, I'm not dressed yet…" A lie, but he wanted even a few more seconds to himself. He needed to figure out what he needed to do about Albel.

He looked over when the door opened anyways.

"Albel?!" Fayt stammered. "What are you doing, don't you have to go prepare with…"

The swordsman's silhouette darkened as the door slipped closed, shutting out the white light from the hall. Inexplicably, he was wearing the Glyphian clothes that Fayt had come to associate with him, not the unfamiliar Aquarian garments.

"Good to see you again, little worm," his voice slickly said in greeting. "You are right, it's been far too long since we last met. How have you been?"

Fayt motioned to rise up from his sleeping position, but Albel crossed the small room in two strides and pressed the palm of his gauntlet gently into Fayt's chest.

"Albel…" Fayt breathed. This is impossible, he was thinking, even as he anxiously looked into Albel's eyes. There was something not quite right about them. Too red, Fayt thought. "Albel, what's wrong with you?"

"What, this isn't what you wanted from me?" Albel chuckled as he drew the distance between them tighter. "Don't tell me you wanted something more meaningful, Fayt."

Fayt's eyes went wide. "Albel?!"

"Oh, come on. I know, Fayt, I know everything. Everything that you think when you look at me, everything you want."

"Albel, it's not like that, I swear!"

"But isn't it," Albel hissed. "Fayt, you know we're alone now… show me what you want. You want me, prove it to me."

"I…" Fayt felt it was under compulsion that he reached up to meet Albel's half-bare chest. He did not even feel the slightest bit of happiness, or even of pleasure. A sick feeling sank deep into his stomach as he felt Albel's too-calm heartbeat.

"How chaste…" Albel murmured playfully. "I think I understand," he muttered under his breath, loud enough for Fayt to hear, as he began to pull away.

"Albel, wait," Fayt hastened as he wrapped his arm up around Albel's shoulders. A desperate moment, and his lips crushed against Albel's. But he felt nothing.

At that, Albel laughed and dragged himself away. And without even as much as another word, he began to leave.

Fayt bolted up from the bed and stood. "Albel, what's wrong with you, seriously?!"

Albel looked over his shoulder. "What? I got what I wanted. That's the only reason I came here, Fayt."

Fayt glowered. "You just wanted a stupid kiss. Is that all?"

Albel feigned deep thought. "I'd say so," he replied, "for now."

And he was gone.

The next knock on the door was truly Nel's. But Fayt had not moved from his stance on the floor.

"Fayt? You all right?" Nel frowned in concern as she examined Fayt's frozen expression.

"Albel," he said quietly. "He…"

Nel looked at him strangely. "Are you saying that Albel was just here? Impossible—you must have been dreaming. He's halfway across the castle right now, and has been since we left the Queen's presence. Come on, if we're late, we won't be able to enter the chapel. And I will hear it from Clair if I am not present, I assure you."

Fayt wordlessly followed Nel down the hallway. There was nothing that he had to say to her, and her own thoughts were disturbed by the upcoming ceremony. Just because he had been more focused on a particular individual from Airyglyph did not mean that the rest of Elicoor was not more concerned with the greater importance of an official union between the two nations. And then there was the crisis with Luther's assistants; there was too much for Fayt to think about.

Wait, Fayt thought. If the Queen knew that King Airyglyph's bride-to-be was in fact not a member of Aquarian nobility, why was she willing to go through with the wedding? And why was the Tamer willing to do the same?

And why had Alex Barker been so roundabout with his attempts to let himself be known as the Metaphysicist? Something was not right.

"Fayt! Lady Nel!!" Helgrave greeted them right outside the chapel. Where Rozalin was now, Fayt could not guess. But he saw a frail-looking woman that had all of Albel's more delicate features.

Helgrave continued. "Fortunate that we keep running into each other like this, isn't it?"

"Indeed," Albel said quietly. Fayt could not comprehend how Albel had managed to change back into his deep blue Aquarian ensemble and return to Helgrave and the rest, after his disturbing visit to Fayt's room.

"Greetings to you as well," Nel said lightly. "Shall we go?" she gestured at the wide-open double doors. Officials and nobility milled about inside under the mask of ceremony.

"Why don't the both of you go ahead," Albel said calmly. "There's something I need to discuss with Fayt. It will only take a moment," he assured both Helgrave and Nel's sudden expressions.

But the both of them left before Fayt could voice a protest.

Fayt felt strangely glad that Albel kept his distance. He did not think he could hold in his anger if Albel had violated his personal space like he had before.

He waited for Albel to talk, eyebrows raised expectantly. "What?" he demanded.

Albel seemed taken aback. If Fayt had been paying closer attention, he would have noticed that Albel had physically flinched at Fayt's tone.

"I simply wanted to say that it's good to see you again," Albel said apologetically, even though his voice made it sound as if he was not quite sure what he was apologizing for.

"Yeah, I definitely got that the last time around," Fayt snarled as he crossed his arms. "Why are you even bothering to talk to me? Talking's too meaningful for you, after all, isn't it?"

It was clear to Fayt that Albel was making a conscious effort to maintain his peaceful façade. For some reason, that upset him more than anything. "Albel, I'm sick of this and I'm sick of you!! If you think you can toy with me like this then you deserve whatever happened to you that makes you cry at night and made you lose that arm!"

He didn't wait for a reply from Albel. "I hope you die alone, Albel. I hope that whoever you actually end up caring for breaks your heart. I'm going to go sit with Nel, now. At least she respects my feelings and treats me like a person."

Fayt swept around and left their quiet corner. He entered into the brightly-lit chapel and felt a vague sensation of emptiness. But it was a reassuring feeling, nearly cathartic. As the clean light semi-blinded him, he dodged around half-familiar Aquarians and Glyphians, and even a few representatives from the Sanmite Republic.

And then Fayt found, with near-tangible relief, the reassuring features of Nel and Clair, as well as the elder Lasbard, Adray.

Helgrave hovered nearby as he chatted with Nel, and looked up to see Fayt. Or Fayt thought it was himself that Helgrave was looking at, until he realized that Albel had followed close behind him.

"Your father Glou was a good friend of mine," Adray cheerily addressed the both of them. "Why don't the both of you sit with us?"

Albel spoke up before Helgrave could accept. "Unfortunately, protocol requires our presence with the other members of House Sylphide. Don't take offense," Albel said with minimal emotion.

But he did not even wait for Adray's farewell before he turned and crossed the aisle, out of easily visible sight. Fayt heard Helgrave's sigh as he excused himself and followed his older brother.

As the ceremony began, Fayt found the actual details—the words spoken by the presiding official of the Church of Apris, for example, or even what color the flowers or dresses were—trapped in an indistinguishable haze he could not concentrate on. He spent the entire time in awkward silence sitting in between Nel and Adray.

Adray had remarked on Albel's strange reluctance to sit with Fayt and commented that the protocol was not so steadfast that Albel could not sit with another group of Aquarians if he preferred to. But Fayt was saved from comment by the sudden quiet that had swept through the onlookers at that moment, so he simply returned to his thoughts.

He noticed that Albel ended up seated next to Lady Elena, of all people. He judged by the identical emblems they wore, the familiar silhouette of the maiden pouring water, that Lady Elena belonged to House Sylphide as well.

They seemed to be speaking with each other in hushed tones. Fayt supposed that even Albel was suitable company, when the alternative was watching the man she loved marry another.

But he did genuinely feel for Lady Elena. King Airyglyph may have loved her back, but he still stood to benefit from his marriage to a prominent Aquarian. And the Tamer, as Fayt called the fair-haired girl in Aquarian robes, certainly had something to gain in all of this.

She had done nothing except love, and in the end, it was Lady Elena who was left alone.

Time skipped before Fayt's eyes, and he found himself on the grand balcony, his surroundings decorated for a casual feast. There were no formal seating arrangements, just close clusters of seating areas every so often. With the sun beaming so joyfully as it was, it would have been torture to ignore it and sit inside.

He thought that he should probably find Alex Barker, but he didn't seem to be anywhere. And of course the bride was too busy accepting the greetings and congratulations of all present, so speaking privately with her was impossible.

"What a party, isn't it," Nel said to him as she casually joined him. "You're looking a bit down. Something the matter?"

At that, Fayt shook his head and laughed lightly. "Oh, no, just thinking. I'm fine," he said as he noticed Albel looking at him. As Albel drew closer, he tried to keep himself steady.

But Albel simply nodded politely at him, before turning to Nel. "There was something you wanted to share with me, Lady Nel?" he said to her.

Nel nodded. "Yes. Fayt already knows about it," she said with a glance in Fayt's direction before beginning to leave. "If you don't mind, Lord Albel?"

Fayt watched as they left. He was once more in thought, and jumped a little when Helgrave approached him later. "Hey, where did Nel go?" Helgrave wanted to know.

"She had something she wanted to tell Albel," Fayt told him.

Helgrave nodded. "How long ago?"

Fayt shrugged. "Maybe fifteen minutes ago," he said speculatively. "That's a pretty long time," he agreed with Helgrave's suspicious look. "Let's go look for them."

"All right," Helgrave agreed and they left the chattering party behind.

Wordlessly, they walked the halls. Fayt realized that Helgrave knew the steps of Aquaria's castle almost as well as he did—how much of his childhood had been spent here?

They were going into the shadowed recesses of the castle now: Fayt knew that Nel would be telling Albel about Luther's assistants, but did they really need to be that secretive when all of the inhabitants of the castle were upstairs, outside?

Fayt froze. Apparently so.

Flames clawed his cheeks as he fumbled to comprehend what he saw.

Nel pulled quickly away, and Albel's eyes locked with his.

No. It did not make sense to Fayt. It could not be true. But how could he but accept, comparing the raw kiss that Albel had forced from him, with the intimate embrace that Nel had shared with him?

Helgrave had stopped beside him, too. His face was unreadable.

There was the hurried rush of a single pair of footsteps, light as if they came from a slight-figured young man. There was barely time for any of the four to move when the running figure became instantly identifiable as none other than Alex Barker.

He halted before them, his breath hard and fast. There was a violent cut across his forehead, and he grasped his left arm with red-tipped fingers. In his panic, he did not seem to even see Helgrave there. "Fayt, Nel," he took a moment to take a ragged breath, "Albel, the Engineer, she's here!! She attacked me when I caught her using…"

His voice stopped as he took in, as if for the first time, the group in front of him. "Oh, greetings Lord Helgrave!" he said with a feigned attempt at lightheartedness. "Fayt, Nel, Albel, I need to talk to you right about now."

Alex's voice seemed to bring Fayt to his senses. "No," Fayt refused as he shook his head. "Not now, not now," and he bowed his head to leave. He needed to get away.

Hours had passed. Alone in his room, Fayt moved his hand over the trapped orb of symbology that served as a source of light, then sighed heavily as the light dimmed. He knew he should rest, but he felt too agitated to even consider sleep. He removed himself from his rooms and quietly walked the Aquarian halls, his footsteps falling into place with the murmur of water behind the walls.

After passing the bowed heads of three groups of servants, Fayt desired a less intruded quiet. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts; even thinking them, he felt embarrassed around other people. So he stepped outside, but the breath of fresh air did nothing to relieve the awful clench around his heart.

I hate him, Fayt said to himself. I really, really hate him. What was that all even about, anyways? What was he trying to prove with that look he gave me as he kissed Nel?

Fayt bit his lower lip until he felt the warmth of blood in his mouth. He found his hands gripping the stone balustrade with whitened knuckles. He closed his eyes and sighed until the urge to kill the one he loved passed over him.

After a long time in the night chill, a stone finally settled in Fayt's chest. Fine, Fayt thought, fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore about any of this. I never did talk to Alex Barker. Something about the Engineer being here—was she the one that Blair said could change her appearance at will?

I need to leave this planet so I can help Maria find Luther's assistants. Maybe it would be good if she met with Alex and his sister.

Leave Elicoor. The reality of the idea struck Fayt heavily. But he had no further purpose in staying here, and it was certain that his companions here would rather do without him.

Fayt held his communicator in his hands, and was distractedly pushing the various buttons when a door violently opened onto the balustrade.

"You're not my—" a weak and desperately angry woman's voice called out as whoever opened the door forced themselves through and slammed the door on the other half of the conversation.

Albel.

Fayt pulled his stare away and froze, standing compelled stiff and looking out onto the night-shadowed lands of Aquaria as if he had seen nor heard nothing. He would have given anything to have decided fifteen minutes ago against going outside.

But still he could feel the heat of Albel's gaze on him, and couldn't help but notice when Albel brazenly approached Fayt's space and stood next to him. He even had the nerve to appear uncharacteristically approachable, as if the two of them had been on infinitely better terms the past few hours than they had in the entire time they had known each other.

"Fayt, I…" Albel began.

Fayt wanted to move away, to leave so abruptly and rudely so as to offend Albel as much as possible. But then he remembered the snippet of an argument he'd caught before Albel slammed the door.

"Have a good conversation with your mother?" Fayt smirked in the darkness, but none of that smirk carried into his voice. He hadn't had enough practice being mean to Albel yet.

"Shut up," Albel said softly, with none of the venom that he would have usually applied. He sighed shallowly. He turned as if to leave.

Fayt's eyes widened in the dark, and he felt his heart catch hold and stop. Albel had yanked Fayt into an awkward, one-armed embrace.

A few hours ago, Fayt would have held onto the man as tightly as possible in return, no matter what the reason. But now Fayt wanted to do something completely different. "Aw, is Albel the Wicked feeling lonely?" he said with sneering malice. "Don't worry, Nel's room is right downstairs."

But Fayt's surging wrath could not shield the darkening look in Albel's eyes.

Albel took him by the front of his shirt and pushed him down into the railing of the balustrade as hard as he could without the use of his metal gauntlet.

Fayt smacked the hard edge of the stone railing in the back of his head, and fought with the black creeping into his consciousness for a moment.

Albel, infuriated, felt a sadistic twinge of satisfaction as the boy struggled for his feet. That split-second reaction stilled him even as he stood; he took a wary step back and disappeared from Fayt's presence as shakily as he had approached him only moments before.

He had thought everything wrong. Everything, for nothing. He would never hold Fayt, never caress that frail body determined to be strong. That single mistake, daring to put faith in an impossibility, and he felt as if a wedge of glass had shattered inside of him.

Because Fayt had really loved Nel Zelpher after all. Of course; it was in Fayt's hate, on Fayt's face. When had there ever been any real idea that Fayt could conceivably care for him, after all?

What had happened in the two hours or so that Albel had to leave Fayt, so that he could waste time on Aquarian trivialities? Fayt had been awkward and shy in the orchard, and painfully confrontational in front of the chapel. What had occurred in between?

His room. His unkind retreat, where that strange mirage of Fayt had tempted him only days ago.

He screamed though gritted teeth and slammed his right hand into the wall, relieved at the surge of pain that shot through the bones in his arm.

"Hey, Albel, you got a minute?" Helgrave's barbed voice sunk into his hearing.

Albel closed his eyes. If there was ever a moment in which he could have been undisturbed, even for just once, he needed it to be this one. "Helgrave, not now," he suppressed a raging roar.

"No, I think now's a pretty good time. Oh, don't bother getting up. I'll just stand. Doesn't matter to you, anyways," Helgrave seethed.

Helgrave's boots filled Albel's vision in the moment before Helgrave jerked his brother's face up to meet his. "Albel, you'd better look at me when I talk to you, give me that much respect at least!!"

"What do you want, Helgrave?" Albel demanded. His voice was raw.

"What do you think, Albel?! How could you even think of doing that to me? Am I worth nothing to you? You know that I feel for Lady Nel, you heartless…"

Helgrave interrupted his condemnation with a disgusted cry of rage that echoed Albel's. "Don't you have anything to say to me?!"

"I don't love her," was all Albel could say. "I was just…"

"Just? Just what? Toying with her, is that it?!"

Albel could not admit it; no, that wasn't the reason. It wasn't Nel that he had wanted to hurt. He wanted Fayt to show hurt, to give Albel some reassurance that Fayt maybe, maybe cared for him. If only.

"Well, congratulations. If you ever looked up to Jason, then you've finally caught up to him. You're just like him now," Helgrave spat.

Albel snarled. "Take that back!!" he shouted as he pushed himself up and held Helgrave's throat still against the wall. It scared him that he had used his razor-edged gauntlet against his own brother, without even intending it.

He immediately pulled back, and took a shaking step backwards before his knees buckled. "You," he said softly, "have no idea what Jason was like. No idea…"

"I don't care," Helgrave said as he stood, rubbing his throat even though Albel had not touched him. "You pull your gauntlet on me again, or you even touch Nel, and I swear that you'll need a new squad captain. And a new brother."

Albel laughed at that. And once the first laugh escaped his lips, he could not stop. "Don't worry, Helgrave," he said even as he remained on his knees. "I don't love her. I don't love anyone. I don't know how…"

He closed his eyes and, regardless of Helgrave's remaining presence, rested his head against the suffocating closeness of the comforter that hung over the edge of his bed. He curled reassuringly against it.

"Albel…?" Helgrave said quietly, hesitantly. "Albel, you still with me?" But Albel no longer heard his brother's voice.

Fayt was still outside when his communicator demanded that he pick up. It was Maria.

"Fayt, are you there? Are you still in Aquaria?"

Fayt sighed in relief as he saw Maria's face. He felt he would even be happy to see Sophia. "Yeah. I'm ready if you're ready."

Maria looked surprised. "What? Now? What do you mean, 'I'? Is it just you? Where are Albel and Nel?"

"Albel and Nel decided not to come," Fayt said stiffly.

Maria shrugged in surprise. "Oh… all right, then. Well, are you going to say goodbye to Albel or something before you leave?"

"Every moment I waste is one that we could be using to find the Incantatrix. It's more important right now."

Maria nodded hesitantly. "You're right, I suppose. I'll transport you up here, and we'll be on our way…"

Fayt looked up at the stars, and waited impatiently for Maria to coordinate the machinery. Up in that blackness, there wasn't even a hint of the crimson that Albel's eyes claimed.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean. But the Engineer and the Kriegsbringer are mine…

Chapter 19

A lean young man with fashionably long, dark hair and gold highlights glared at his reflection standing before him as he leaned against the thin silver trunk of an aspen. Tens, maybe dozens of clones fanned their dancing leaves in the wind around him, providing camouflage suitable to his identity, the Kriegsbringer.

"I told you not to do that. It bothers me," he said shortly, his eyes narrowing.

His reflection sniffed before melting into the appearance of a young schoolgirl with long, silver hair shot through with cyan and green. "I did what you wanted. Even though I think it would have been better to keep the both of them here."

"Which is exactly why I'm in charge, Engineer, and you aren't." But even as he tried to maintain his strict expression, his lips cracked into a vague smile. "You know I didn't mean that," he told her.

She wasn't going to easily forgive him. Her arms crossed, she looked out at the Aquarian landscape from their wooded sanctuary. "If you didn't mean it, don't say it, Kriegsbringer."

"You're prettier when you assume your true form, you know."

That made her smile. But it wasn't enough to erase the worry from her eyes.

He paused. "Engineer, what's the matter?"

He watched, his eyes calculating as she wordlessly measured her thoughts before deciding to voice them. "I ran into the Metaphysicist. He tried to kill me."

"You told me that the Metaphysicist and the Tamer were unaware," he admonished. This was more important than keeping the Engineer happy; he needed to know for certain, and he needed to know immediately.

"The Metaphysicist was faking when I appeared before him the first time and he didn't react. But the Tamer truly has no idea. The Eternal Sphere is no longer a role-playing game for her, but her actual life. Must be difficult for the Metaphysicist," she chuckled.

"About the Metaphysicist," the Kriegsbringer said.

"Do you want me to deal with him?"

The Kriegsbringer thought. "No. We need him to maintain contact with the carrier of the Destruction gene. But when the time comes, I want to take care of him."

"Any special reason?"

The Kriegsbringer nodded. "He could have scarred your pretty face," he said casually, but he meant it more than the Engineer knew. "So what are you going to do while we wait? We can't do anything here until the Justice arrives."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Mess with the glitch some more, probably. He was so much more fun than his lover. How long ago did you contact the Justice?"

The Kriegsbringer held back his answer for a moment, taking in the Engineer's true appearance; she spent so little time in it that he did not take his eyes off of her when she was herself.

The Engineer had walked into the lobby of Sphere those years ago, looking as young and surprised as she appeared in her avatar. He had not been much older, himself. It surprised him that Sphere had chosen to employ the mind of another programming genius besides himself.

She had been the first of eight others to join him, all of them young, so much younger than Luther or his sister Blair or any of the system administrators.

The oldest was a year older than his seventeen. The Incantatrix, she had called herself. She never became as enthusiastic about the new projects Luther assigned them as he did. And when he had announced it was time to shut down the Milky Way server, she all but declared her loyalty to Blair.

There was the Lover— his twin brother, actually, but Sphere had snapped him up first. The Kriegsbringer remembered when the Lover had shown interest in the Engineer. That hadn't lasted long. But it was for the best. The Lover had found better companionship in the Lightseeker. He just didn't understand the Engineer's dedication to Luther's high standards.

The Historian was mostly the Incantatrix's friend. With a near-photographic memory and a sense of databases to match, she was never seen outside of her workspace as she managed from behind the scenes a storage place for every event that would take place. In fact, the Kriegsbringer had only ever interacted with her inside the game.

The Metaphysicist, who could keep countless equations in his head at once, renovated the stat system from Sphere's previous MMORPGs. He enjoyed the work as long as there was work to do—it was not for Luther's approval that he slaved under the compulsion of all those numbers, but passion for the programming itself. His sister the Tamer was as creative as he was calculating: the Kriegsbringer could not remember how many times he had gone over to her workstation to find four, five different imaging programs opened up at once as she designed field monsters.

He did not understand her; she took to her creations with an almost motherly endearment. But ironically enough, it was she who Luther asked to design the physical manifestation of the debugging and destroyer programs. Those were her most beautiful creations, as well as the only ones she hated.

But the Justice was the most fervent, the one who took her job the most seriously. Fitting that she soon overtook debugging functions as soon as her NPC programming had finished.

"Um, Kriegsbringer? You there?" the Engineer chirped in annoyance. "When did you last talk to the Justice?"

"Days ago. But you know very well that the Justice won't come until she has finished her job. And there are many, many bugs riddling the Milky Way server's programming."

The Engineer sighed. "Well, if that's the case, I'm going to return to Aquaria."

"Don't," the Kriegsbringer said quickly.

She looked at him guardedly as he closed the distance between them. "Hmm? Why not?"

She smiled shyly as he wrapped her in his in arms. He pressed her against his maroon floor-length military coat before saying to her, "wouldn't you rather spend a little more time with another real person? Don't tell me you're growing fond of the NPCs, Engineer."

"Fond of them? Yes. Fond of abusing them," she joked. She continued as he absentmindedly stroked her long, silver hair. "You forget it's my job to make them my marionettes. Just as it's your job to fight."

"But it's so boring right now," he lamented. "Why don't I come down with you, and you can start a war for me, since you're our resident scenario writer?"

"That depends," the Engineer said as her gaze took in the peaceful Aquarian landscape. She could barely make out the castle. "Their Circle of Voices meets in four days. And House Izmaria aches to see the glitch removed from his seat with House Sylphide. Are you in the mood for civil war?"


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: Star Ocean isn't mine. Short and sweet.

Chapter 20

"What is it, Sophia?" Fayt croaked as he sheltered his eyes from the fluorescent overhead light. That hard-edged glare was one thing he had not missed on Elicoor II. "I'm tired. Let me sleep."

He heard an audibly displeased sigh as Sophia perched on the edge of his bed. "Come on, Fayt, you've been out for four days!! Maria needs to speak with you. And everyone else wants to see your face, you can't just come back and hide up in your room like this!"

He grumbled weakly as she forcefully pulled his arm from his gaze and wrenched back the covers. "And take a shower and do something about your Elicoorian clothes, won't you? What, didn't Albel let you bathe when you were down there?"

"Sophia, I can't wash up if you're in the room yelling at me," he said, his patience obviously tried.

She smiled, happy that he expressed anger at her mention of Albel's name. "All right, then. I'll be waiting at the bridge. You still remember where that is, right?"

Fayt's eyes narrowed. "I'll figure it out somehow, Sophia. Just give me five minutes…"

And just when he felt sure he would have to physically evict her from his room, she willingly skipped out, leaving him at last in peace.

She was just trying to be nice, he told himself. Just trying to involve herself in your life again, now that you've returned. Probably for good.

He closed his eyes languidly as the hot water from the showerhead loosened his tight muscles. He had woken up sore, and Sophia's interruption certainly did not help.

It hurt to think of him.

He turned off the water, and toweled himself dry as he clothed himself. He missed his Elicoorian clothes. But there was nothing he could do about that, either.

Fayt wondered why he felt so confined in a ship that was open to all of the expanses of space, but he could not shake the claustrophobic suffocation of the Diplo's metal and machinery. He had felt better on Elicoor, where he could breathe air that wasn't artificially processed, and feel the sun warm his skin in rays, not the generic fog of heating.

Sophia had lied to him. She was not waiting for him at the bridge. She was sitting patiently on the cluster of seats in the open area preceding the bridge, her face hopefully cheerful.

"You weren't joking when you said five minutes," she laughed almost nervously as she stood up. "You ready? Maria says there's a lot to talk about."

He did not even protest when Sophia slipped her hand in his. And then he was ready to face Maria.

"Hey, kid! Been a while, don't you think?" a voice buffeted him before a blond man crushed him in a welcoming hug. Cliff.

Fayt looked up and faked cheer well enough to convince the Klausian. "How's it going, Cliff? Mirage?"

Cliff nodded. "Not too shabby, not too shabby. At least until we got that call from you. Maria went to pick up Mirage right away, and here we are!"

Mirage smiled. "It feels awfully empty without the rest of us, though. Amazing what difference a few people can make," she said. "Peppita won't be joining us, of course. Her guardians put their foot down, and rightfully so. And you tell us that Albel and Nel won't be coming with? It's a little disheartening, I must admit."

"Yeah, there's no one like Albel to cover your back in a brawl," Cliff commented. "Course, not that I'm saying I like the guy, but…"

Maria cleared her throat. "We need to get down to business," she said firmly, and Fayt threw her an unrecognized look of thanks. "First, we need to decide exactly what we're going to do. We can hardly comb every planet in the galaxy looking for Luther's programming team. Fayt, is there anything you'd like to say about the ones you've encountered so far?"

Fayt's eyes went wide in surprise. "Me? Oh, um, sure. Well…"

His unsteady speech's beginning was interrupted by an insistent and unfamiliar whine issuing from his communicator.

Unthinking, he picked it up and answered by reflex. "Alex?!" he stammered.

"The Metaphysicist in knowledgeable company, if you please," the young scholar said and adjusted his glasses on his nose. A frightening bandage covered half of his forehead. "Patch me through to the Diplo's larger screen—never mind, I'll do it myself…"

And the star map was replaced by the pale visage of the blond-haired Metaphysicist.

"You must be the Metaphysicist," Maria said with professional poise. "As captain of the Diplo, I welcome you."

The Metaphysicist smiled. "I'm honored to meet the Alteration and Connection at least. Why didn't you tell me they were so charming, Fayt?" he teased genially.

"But I will call you by Maria and Sophia if you prefer," he amended. "And to save time. Speaking of saving time, Maria, it would do you well to look up… any current events on any place that Fayt has been. If Fayt has stepped foot there, you need to check up on that planet."

Maria motioned for her subordinate Marietta, as well as Mirage, to tap the Diplo's search engines. "Make that Moonbase, Sol III or course, and Vanguard III, and Styx. May I ask why?" she addressed to the Metaphysicist.

"Because I fear that since the Engineer is here on Elicoor II, the Kriegsbringer is here as well. And if the Kriegsbringer is here, then he will have contacted the Justice. I would know if the Justice appeared planetside—I think the entire planet would—but since she hasn't, it means she is doing her job somewhere else."

"Her job?" Maria frowned. "And what do you mean, by you 'think the entire planet' would know if she was there?"

He heaved a sigh, which made his glasses fall. He distractedly pushed them to their proper place. "Because she's head debugger of Sphere. Not Azazer or whoever else you met in 4D, but her—the company doesn't like displaying its key people. If she showed up on Elicoor, you'd see…"

"Maria, come see this now!!" Mirage's voice cut across the Metaphysicist's words.

"It's the Justice," the Metaphysicist briefed them. Cliff, already having caught sight of Mirage's findings, paced the floor of the bridge.

"Fayt, come over here and see what I'm seeing," Maria told him. Her words were hurried, her expression frantic and quick.

Fayt took in the stills of slaughter. It could have been mistaken for a scene of war. A twinge in his chest sickly reminded him of Albel. What had Fayt's sudden departure done to him? Or would it have even mattered, after all that Fayt had already inflicted on the man?

"Fayt," Maria said tersely. "Fayt, are you listening to us? Is this the planet you crashed on?"

He took in the photograph with sudden familiarity. That planet was not unfamiliar to him—he had been there before.

"Is that Vanguard III?" His voice said, higher than he'd intended.

"That's what I was referring to," the Metaphysicist sighed. "The Justice is 'cleansing' any area that has been touched by your hand, Fayt. According to her, the NPCs' behavior programs are all tainted; as are other programs. She has completely lost her mind, claims the Incantatrix."

Fayt remembered Blair's words, that the Incantatrix would help them. "You've spoken to the Incantatrix? Where is she? Blair said we needed to find her," he asked the Metaphysicist.

The Metaphysicist paused a moment. "I wouldn't call it speaking, exactly. She's not anywhere I can reach her, I'll guarantee that. She's in 'the quiet place'. Listen to me—there's nothing you can do about Vanguard III."

Fayt thought of the defenseless inhabitants of Vanguard III. He had not been able to recall the melody from that music box for months, but now it was strangely crystalline and clear in his mind's ear.

"You need to go to Styx before the Justice gets there, and open a link to 4D. You won't get to 4D of course, you'll end up in one of the links left over from when our worlds were connected. There, with luck, you'll find the Incantatrix. Listen, I have to go. The Engineer's bound to pick up something if I keep connected like this."

There was a thought unreadable on Maria's lips. "Wait, you can't leave us just yet. What are we supposed to do with the Justice if we find her?"

They could tell by his hesitant expression that he had no good answer. "If you," he began measuredly, "do happen to meet the Justice before you find the Incantatrix, then you'll have to make good use of your symbological abilities."

Sophia interjected. "But we're supposed to help all of you return to your world, not kill you!"

The Metaphysicist gave a grimacing smile. "Yes, well… I would like to use my coworker the Kriegsbringer's words and say to you, 'do or die'. And if you do not at least incapacitate her, you will assuredly die."

In the silence that followed, there was nothing for anyone to say.

"I'll contact you as soon as it is safe," he said by way of farewell, and the screen was more a breadcrumb map of stars in the black night.

"Wait," Fayt called out too late, only to realize that the question he wanted to ask had nothing to do with the crisis of Luther's lingering presence. It was a question he could never voice in front of everyone.

On the reverse side of Fayt's unasked question, Albel looked dazedly up at the stars. It had been four days. Four days since Fayt had disappeared into the night, four days since Albel had been able to lose himself in the oblivion of darkness.

He did not sleep because he dared not dream. Trapped inside the haunting ghost that clung to him like a net, he was afraid. Deathly, deathly afraid. His gauntlet did not obey him, did not listen to his protesting cries as it slit Fayt's throat. But as he held the weakening boy in his tight arms, there was the sickly sensation that his own throat bled.

After ten years, he had finally done it; he had committed suicide.

But it was Fayt with a bitter expression, Fayt who looked as if he had been wronged as he mouthed, "I hate you."

Dark shadows overwhelmed his dimmed ember eyes. At the break of dawn, he would face the day that would finally claim his as a son of Aquaria.

And then he jumped, startled by the sight in the doorway. For a moment, reality had slipped sideways and he had envisioned himself in Airyglyph castle, the cold winter night that the mysterious engineers from Greeton had crashed into the middle of the square. A blue-haired boy, bloodied and weary-eyed, fatigued from torturous pain, looked up at him pleading from behind iron bars.

No doubt the boy did not even remember their first encounter. But Albel recalled enough for the memory to haunt him.

He had done nothing for the crumpled figure; not a calming word, not even a comforting gaze. He had barely even stopped, so jaded he was to the rigors of torture.

"Albel?" 

As Albel flipped over his wrist, he caught sight of the pearly rivulets that coursed down his skin to the soft scarring on his palm. He had not considered it in years, but those filigree scars were the most tempting for him to open up again.

This time, he doubted that Helgrave would come for him.

"Albel! Do you hear me?"

He looked up, and the world slipped back into focus. It seemed that Helgrave had the most impeccable timing, and not even the past few days of forced silence towards Albel could thwart that. "Helgrave," he said in subdued surprise. "I thought you were… someone else…"

Helgrave's eyes narrowed. "Like who?"

Albel turned back to his introspection. "For a moment, I thought you were Fayt."

Helgrave sighed impatiently. "Albel, for Apris' sake, go to sleep. You're hallucinating."

"What did you really come here for?"

Helgrave was caught off guard. "What are you talking about? You think I've got some ulterior motive or something?"

"You actually, genuinely care?" Albel laughed. "You're fooling yourself more than me," he commented. "I'm fine. I've been fine, I will be fine. You should hold your own sleep in higher regard than mine. Go back to bed, Helgrave."

"But…"

"Let me take my rightful place as your older brother, Helgrave," Albel said in a way that ended the conversation.

Helgrave, feeling a little chastised, nodded in acceptance. "All right. Good night, then."

But the threshold that Helgrave crossed next was not his private room. Like the tide, his hate for Albel had ebbed away, and sadness for him remained. His heavy steps echoed against the immaculate tile, his features caressed only by the occasional lit candle. It had been a long time since he had properly prayed.

He wet his fingers with the Holy Water of Apris, bubbling clear from a fountain near the mouth of the cathedral. Drawing the circle on his chest that was the cycle of water and his faith, he did not even enter one of the pews as he simply dropped to his knees in the middle of the aisle.

"Apris," he said, but found he could not continue. The words would not come, no matter his belief that the words to pray would stay ingrained into him forever as if a river had etched them to his soul. Had he lost his faith that easily?

"Why would you be so hurtful to one of your own children?" he then said without the peaceful tone of prayer. "What did Albel do? I know it was not because he lost faith, because he believed in you still when you took our father away and ascribed the blame on his shoulders. What kind of god would," he choked.

Then he came to his feet with a sigh. He could not continue. Perhaps rest would give him the answers that Apris refused.


	21. Chapter 21

After thinking about it for a while, I decided it would be better to post these next two chapters together. greyrondo

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean!! I promise…

Chapter 21

"Helgrave!! You have to get up now," a voice he could have sworn was Lady Nel's insisted. "We're leaving for Arias. We have to get you out of here."

Helgrave blinked awake, and grumbled something insubstantial as Lady Nel shook his shoulders just to make sure he was truly waking up. "Lady Nel??" he murmured sleepily.

When he sat up and looked around, he became only more confused. It was bright morning, hours after the first meeting of the Circle of Voices would have begun. If he was not mistaken, Lady Nel—the only Zelpher remaining—should be there, not here.

"Lady Nel, with all due respect, what in Apris' name are you talking about?"

He stared blankly as Lady Nel breathed once for patience. "Your brother is missing. I suspect foul play. It's better to be safe than sorry; I would rather you not be in danger, Helgrave."

Helgrave was quiet. She had said his name softly. "Lady Nel…"

"There's no time for this now," she said hesitantly.

But despite that, Helgrave sat for a moment more in abstraction before the urgency of Nel's words finally struck him. "Wait, Albel's gone?"

Nel looked at him in disbelief. "Yes, Helgrave! That's why I'm getting you out of harm's way!!"

He stood up, but it wasn't to depart. He paced the small room as he said, "wait, Nel, you're overreacting… just because he's gone doesn't mean that something happened to him. Well," he amended, "actually it does mean something happened to him, but not like you think. He's probably just left or something…"

"Your Count Woltar's investigating his room at this moment; I daren't allow Crimson Blade to do so. If he did leave, he left the Crimson Scourge behind, Helgrave."

Helgrave took in a deep breath. "Wait, wait," he said as his hand shook, and gestured patience. "It doesn't necessarily mean any foul play. I know that sounds crazy, but…"

He had almost said 'but Albel's crazy'; he held his tongue. That was not something that easily left the family.

"Just let me go talk to Count Woltar. Five minutes, Nel, and I swear we'll decide on some course of action."

He had barely seen her waiting nod, as he swept out of the room into the next.

"Woltar," he said in the doorway. After a breath of thought, he closed it. No need for anyone to hear what may pass in their following conversation. "What's this that Nel—Lady Nel's claiming?"

The old count pulled himself from his kneeling position on the floorboards. The indiscriminate white cloth he had been examining was limp in his mottled hand. "It seems our young lord has pulled a disappearing act."

"We should have detained him," Helgrave sighed, defeated. "Like when Sieg died. We should have known he would have lost control like this."

Count Woltar nodded solemnly. "But that time, it was easy to save him from himself. It would be hard to pretend that he committed treason and lock him away again, this time. However, I discovered something that you will find curious. This," and he offered the strange scrap of fabric to Helgrave.

Helgrave frowned as he looked at it, rubbed it between his fingers, and then carefully brought it to his nose. A small inhalation, and he quickly pulled it away from his breath. "That's drugged," he said in astonishment as he handed the cloth back to Woltar.

"And look here," Woltar pointed to the floorboards.

Helgrave recognized the five telltale scars that ran perpendicular to the wood grain.

"I would take Crimson Blade's offer of protection and leave with Lady Nel as soon as you depart my presence."

Helgrave looked at him blankly. "What about you?"

The Count laughed. "I have no Sylphide blood, boy. You think I'm a threat to these Aquarian madmen? Lady Nel Zelpher, take this young man to safety," he addressed behind Helgrave, to the doorway.

Helgrave swiftly turned around, wide-eyed, to find Nel's waiting hand, outstretched as if it would catch him. By her side were her two always faithful soldiers, the bronze-haired Tynave and violet Farlene. They would not meet his eyes.

In another state of existence entirely, Fayt called out the names of Maria, Sophia, anyone. He heard only his own voice, tinned and refracted in the quiet place's unseen blue walls. With too much ease had they approached Styx, and with the Metaphysicist's help and Sophia's powers they once again opened a path into the next dimension. It wasn't a true walkway, of course, but that was their intention.

It wasn't getting into the quiet place, Fayt realized sinkingly, that was the problem. It was finding the Incantatrix and getting out. But he could not even find himself, or the others.

"It won't work for you," a clipped female voice with an indistinguishable accent told him.

"Where are you?" Fayt demanded. He could see no one, not even a breath of a soul's resilient trail in the cold and empty air. "Are you the Incantatrix?"

A quiet, pleased laugh. "No, no. I'm the Historian. Don't worry, I won't harm you. Walk forward a little, won't you?"

Fayt frowned. He had already walked forward. Backwards, sideways, anyways. It had not done anything for him before, but he grudgingly obeyed the Historian's words, if that was truly who she was.

"What if you're really the Engineer? What then?" he said suspiciously, knowing he would not get a straight answer if she was.

But even as he stepped forward, the transient air solidified into a cold workspace. An array of screens giving readouts, cabinet upon cabinet of files saved onto chips the size of a grain of salt stored in impossible order.

It was all the sterile white of a hospital.

"The Engineer can't come here to the quiet place," a dark-skinned girl in her teens informed him. In complete contrast to the surroundings, she wore a shimmering robe-like dress in the gradient hues of a vibrant sunset. It hurt to look at her, after all of the dimness from before.

"Especially not here, where the databases are. She can request information to get her stories straight, but she can never enter personally. Sit."

And at a wave of her hand, a perfectly ordinary office chair materialized in front of the largest computer screen.

"Is there anything you would like to know?" the Historian then asked as he warily took a seat.

Fayt looked into her dark eyes. "What do you mean?"

She fanned her hand to the keyboards. "At your fingertips lies the entire history of your dimension. Everything recorded, nothing forgotten or deleted—I made sure. Here in the quiet place, you could spend hours, days, watching and only seconds will pass to your friends.

"I've looked at the records. You and your group have come to rescue the Incantatrix from this prison. The Incantatrix was my only true friend at Sphere," she admitted. "I owe you in return, for her."

"What about you?" Fayt wanted to know. By the way she said it, it seemed as if she did not know she would be coming with them as well.

The Historian was quiet. "I can't come with you."

"What?!"

She continued. "I don't exist outside of this game. Unlike the others on the development team, I... don't have a body to return to in 4D space."

Fayt frowned. "What do you mean? Tell me," he asked.

"There was an accident. When Luther launched the Eternal Sphere for beta testing. It had to be shut down; I was left inside. My brain told my body it was dead, so my body reacted accordingly. The Incantatrix hacked the system and found this remnant of myself. The quiet place has been my home ever since."

Fayt looked straight at her. "Well, that doesn't make sense. If what you say is true, then you're a resident of our world now. It's ridiculous of you to stay in this place by yourself. Come with us, and you can live out there."

The Historian was taken aback; Fayt was as well. He had not expected such a sudden and warm invitation to come from inside himself, but there was something in the Historian's isolation that reminded him of something. Something he wanted desperately to amend.

"I would like that," the Historian finally said.

Fayt nodded. "Then… can I look up something that a person's doing at this moment, on this computer?"

The Historian shook her head. "No. It only shows the past. Albel Nox of Elicoor II, right?"

Fayt's eyes went wide. "Yeah."

"If you really want to… I can show you something of his past. Something he could never fully describe to you."

"You would do that?"

The Historian nodded.

"Is it… his Accession of Flame?"

She studied him for a moment. "There are many things in Albel's past that would fit my description of 'inexplicable', but yes. That is the worst. If you will stand it."

Fayt turned away from her stare. "I would… want to know." He then nodded, convincing himself that it was so.

In waking, Albel looked up through his bangs, hair stringy and clotted because of the blood that had trickled from the deep cut on his scalp. But he only saw earthy darkness, the type of darkness he recalled from the bowels of dragon's homes. There was light, if that hellish glow from the seeping magma could do more than dimly imitate its celestial counterpart.

He had awoken with a fright, and his heart had not slowed its fleeing pace. The nightmare surrounded him.

That early, early morning, just after Helgrave had left him. Albel had just returned to the place halfway between meditation and wakefulness when he was disturbed again. He caught his reaction to bolt up when the door opened with only the slightest bit of sound. If he had been sleeping, the noise would have not even woken him.

Instead, his gaze darted up to the intruder. It was not Helgrave, not anyone he knew.

No, he amended that. Something in his intruder's presence identified him as Crimson Blade. Not one of Nel's.

Of Astor's, then. His mind called up flashes of the dark swordfight he'd fought in his room at the inn as he flexed his gauntlet.

"What do you want," he said carefully. Even as he spoke, a pair of dark-clothed soldiers came in to bolster the initial intruder. Those he recognized instantly. "Tynave, Farlene," he said quietly. "I did not think you would hold a grudge so strong that you would go against Lady Nel's orders."

"Who do you take us for?" Farlene said in covert reply.

"How else would Aquaria survive so long against abnormalities like you, half-breed," Tynave said to him. "How else do you think Astor's men got away that night?"

"That's a good point," Albel said quietly.

Tynave continued. "You may have the look of Aquaria, but you're not one of us. You're a blood-soaked Glyphian to the core, and it's our blood that has stained your soul. We never forgive. And we always remember."

He ignored them as the man, presumably a subordinate of Astor's, revealed an indiscriminate cloth from beneath the folds of his clothing.

"You're not stepping anywhere near the Circle of Voices," Farlene told him.

Perhaps it was the shock of Tynave and Farlene, perhaps it was the four sleepless days that had worn and frayed his muscles and reflexes, but he was pinned to the floor with the soaked cloth against his mouth and nose before he had even drawn his sword.

He fought the infectious urge to breathe in. The overwhelming intoxication was burning and sick in his lungs. The more he struggled against their combined restraints, the further he felt himself sinking. When the world dissolved around him, he felt the vague sense of separation from his left arm, and then an engulfing abyss.

And now his head throbbed thinly, his left arm a void—the mechanics had been rendered motionless, somehow. Damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Chain bound his remaining limbs, his throat; he had been tied to a natural pillar with the metal links in a cross over his chest in his forced sleep. Without his gauntlet, a channel for the desperate runology that Albel claimed as his own, he was as helpless as his aggressors wanted him to be.

Albel was deathly afraid. There was no one else to save him from the beast this time.


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I do not claim Star Ocean as my own. Just Fayt and Albel's angst.

Chapter 22

Fayt shifted until the seat barely supported him.

"You wanted to know," the Historian informed him without so much as a hint of emotion in her voice. She stood, dark and beautiful—almost like Albel in her expression—at his side.

Fayt ignored the sterile chill in the air. His fingers resting coldly on the hovering keyboard, he let the Historian interpret his wishes into actions that the database could understand.

What the database pulled up for him was, of all things, a promotional video. It seemed much like others from his own video-gaming experiences, except that the subject was Elicoor II.

"You remember that Flad commented Sphere was having trouble keeping players in the Milky Way servers when the Andromeda servers had opened," the Historian recalled for him, drowning out the bombastic promotional voice-over. "I kept tabs on my world too, after all."

Fayt had the uneasy feeling that there was nothing that the Historian did not know.

"They spent a great deal of their promotional campaigns on various planets—such as the Earthian fleet, the fantasy worlds of other alien species, and Elicoor II."

A screen of a dragon, rendered in brilliance. Fayt knew the face of that dragon well—and its voice. It was Crosell.

"Crosell," the Historian spoke aloud. "One promotion included a side quest. You know it as the bond that exists in Airyglyph between dragons and humans. Accession of Flame. The quest—to see how high of a dragon you can bond with. Crosell was, of course, promoted as the best. Nearly impossible, but that's what sells subscriptions, doesn't it."

Deep in the bowels of Elicoor, Albel watched as the dragon stirred. And then, unwillingly, he closed his eyes. Fire scorched the sight of his mind's eye. And all the while, his condition worsening. Crosell had slept longer than Albel's kidnappers had intended—perhaps Albel would even die before the dragon finished what it had started ten years ago.

He wondered which death he would prefer. He would not go down without a fight, or at least without a word. The reason for his closed eyes shifted from fright to meditation. Why did that boy come to mind?

Then he heard the shiver of scales, the percussive roll of that behemoth's steps, the flush of surprised and angry fire.

Albel felt the warmth of the dragon on his skin. He opened his eyes and a breath of fear caught in his throat as his bloodstained gaze was pinned by that of his nightmare's.

The Historian noticed Fayt's hesitation even as the young man reconsidered. He was trespassing on Albel's past, once again.

"You would like to see Albel's Accession of Flame ceremony," the Historian spoke, not asked. Fayt shook his head fervently, but the database processed the command.

A new video pulled up. This one was raw, with none of the edited care of the promotional ad that Fayt had seen. In a way, he was glad of that.

A fourteen year-old soldier, nothing more than a boy. It was the boy that Fayt had seen so long ago, in the cobwebbed room, on the abandoned portrait. An older man, with the rougher features of Albel's face and all of Helgrave's build—it appeared that Albel took more after his mother than his father, Captain Glou Nox of the Dragon Brigade.

The boy was not afraid, even when the soldier behind them peeled off from the pair to stand at the mouth of the opening to Crosell's lair. That soldier— a younger Duke Vox.

Fayt watched as Albel calmly went through all of the motions that Fayt himself had gone through months before, but with the precision of someone who knew all the steps. He played the dragon-bone flute as if he had practiced the ancient dragon songs for months.

They had spent hours down in that shadowed maze—why had Albel not helped them then?

The final room.

"Father," the younger Albel said in a plain and steady voice, as he unsheathed his blade.

Glou Nox nodded silently, and backed away. They had rehearsed this—or it was simply Albel's battle to fight.

Fayt watched with amazement at the flitting, chaotic dance that followed between Albel and the hovering, taunting guardian; he recalled his own less graceful encounter with the same spirit.

Victory, but Albel only smiled in relief as he sheathed his sword. There would be no need for it in the next room. He took a deep breath, and with his father behind him, was the first to enter into the cavernous hall that the king of dragons resided in.

The Crosell that Albel bowed submissively before was not the haughty creature that Fayt remembered. But he was still fearsome, and admired the unwavering strength in Albel's committing movements as he laid aside his sword and his dragon bone flute.

He spoke in a rapid tongue that Fayt could not quite follow; his communicator did not register the sound coming from the audio. It flickered with the dancing tongues of a small fire catching its kindle; his words grew in strength and resonated in the recesses of the cavern. What he said seemed so secret and arcane that Fayt ached to know what words Albel spoke. The dragon listened.

But there was the question.

"You boy, who are not even a year within the time in which you humans come of age, would take your Accession of Flame with me, Crosell, the Marquis?" the dragon roared, spitting flame on either side of Albel. This display of power did not faze Albel.

"Captain of the humans my people interact with, you who know the most of what this boy asks; your very son has the audacity to come before me?"

Glou Nox took in the words of the dragon steadily. "You will not find a soldier of Airyglyph more worthy of your power, Crosell."

"He is not a soldier of Airyglyph yet. Boy, would you take personal responsibility for the credit of your father's words?"

"I would," Albel said proudly. He took his sword in one hand one last time, drew it across the thin flesh of his left hand in almost ritualistic motion. Fayt wondered how much of what was said was tradition, how much truth.

"I offer you a warrior's blood," Albel said, strength in his words.

Then he raised his head, his long dark hair falling away from his face. He met the unreadable gaze of the dragon he was supplicating before.

And then everything turned.

Crosell pulled his head away with an offended flash of fire. "You would dare attempt to continue the Accession of Flame, you impudent human child!?"

The young Albel blinked, withdrew his bloodied wrist. The stain had muddied the cut, and his wound was no longer the sacredly beautiful ruby line.

"I would," Albel began. He was not shaken, not quite yet. But confusion wrinkled his young brow.

The dragon let out a screech. "And you dare speak?! You, who are but a child, and an arrogant child at that, actually believe that you are worthy, worthier than those who have come before you?!"

"Kings have knelt at my feet, begging for my strength! Mages have come to me with treasures to plead secrets! You offer the blood of a worthless boy with a sword, as if you were their equal?!"

Albel had rocked back on his knees, uncertain if he should stand or not. Words hovered at his throat.

"My dragons have brought back ridiculous tales of you, the Captain's offspring! You are not worthy to even inherit a name that denotes Glyphian nobility!"

A shadow overcame the entrance to the cavern, and Fayt became the second to observe. Duke Vox stood in the mouth of the cave.

The dragon's wings beat wind around the entire cave, so forceful it threw Albel off balance, onto his back.

"Albel, take your chance now! Speak to him, persuade him!!" Glou Nox encouraged.

Watching, Fayt shook his head. What was Albel's father doing, telling him to stay—Albel needed to get out of there.

Crosell drew his face back, flame sparking in his throat. "I will accept your blood, boy! To wet my fangs and to nourish the lowest of my dragon kin, so that they may know humility before me!!"

Albel shook to his feet and took a wary few steps backwards. The Marquis' tail whipped around, catching him in the chest and sending him flying backwards.

Albel's arms quivered feebly as they tried to restore his body to his feet. He gasped for the burning dry air in the cavern.

Crosell spat fire at him. Fayt watched in horror as Albel in fright raised his left arm to shield himself. He cried out; blood trickled down his lip where he had bit down against the pain.

"Albel, hurry, redeem yourself!" Glou insisted still. Fayt's fingernails cut into his palms. What are you doing, your son is going to die.

Crosell reared back to finish him, and Glou Nox's reserve shattered.

"Albel!!"

A protective shadow overtook Albel's small body just as enraged flame engulfed the wide air of the cavern.

The fire burned for a long time, lingering on the edges of the cave longer than anything. The dragon glared appraisingly, head held high and proud.

Save the flickering flames, the cave was deathly silent.

Then a solitary, shuddering gasp. Underneath a hollowed shell indistinguishable from the rubble of Crosell's lair, a blackened hand stretched out.

Fire had devoured Albel's clothing, scorched his hair until the shortest of dark locks remained. He dragged himself to an inferior kneel, his right handshaking violently as it supported his failing body. Burns encircled his throat, his shoulders, his legs, everywhere that his father could not protect him. His left arm clung dead to his side.

"You survived," the dragon spoke slowly. "You don't even have the sense to die."

Albel looked up at that, winced as defeated tears glistened in his eyes. He fought to keep himself in even that weak, dying position.

The dragon's tail wrapped itself daringly around his throat. He cried out in pain as the scales ran jagged along the inflicted burns.

"I am weak," he breathed, voice scarred by smoke. He stammered senselessly in the gaze of the dragon.

"I'm everything you said… I'm nothing…"

And then his eyes flitted dimly and his body went limp. The screen went black.

The older Albel stared breathless at the dragon that scalded his nightmares. He still remembered every instant of his cursed Accession of Flame.

"Always the fear in your eyes, boy?" the Marquis said.

Albel's voice choked in his throat as the dragon drew ever nearer.

The Marquis took his time examining him.

"Who did this to you?" he finally asked in conclusion as he drew his leviathan body close to Albel's dwarfed figure. As Albel searched for the sound of his words, the dragon paralyzed any attempt on Albel's part at speech as he snapped the thick chains with his teeth.

The steel binds fell away like dying fire; and with them Albel's support. The chains had cut off Albel's circulation, and it was with reminiscent humiliation that Albel fell to the dirt.

Or very nearly. The Marquis flicked out his tail, catching Albel in a golden circle of scales. Albel's world spun dangerously for a moment; he was more lightheaded than he had supposed.

"Let me see you, boy," the Marquis said as he cocked his head in curious examination. Albel's clothes were in gashed rags, much like the dragon had left him ten years ago. But the burns were old. They were now only scars that stitched the past to the present.

And with a flame-spurted sigh, the Marquis' gold suddenly dimmed, the fire in his eyes and throat old and tired. "I suppose this was my doing," he said with solemnity.

Before Fayt's eyes, the video caught, and rewound quickly to the point just before the Marquis threw his head back in disgust.

"But more importantly, watch Albel's Accession of the Flame through the eyes of Sphere," the Historian's voice jarred Fayt into the present. He had forgotten everything around him in the eclipsing fires of Albel's downfall.

He looked up at her still form quickly.

"You will understand what I show you," she said quickly, "because you have experience in video game programming—you were interested in traditional scripting in your sixteenth year of age when the built-in scripts of your PCs bored you. Now watch."

Fayt felt an almost painful sense of vertigo when he watched the game script laid out over the screen. Not only did he watch both at once—even the second time, his eyes wandered towards Albel's ordeal—but the very idea that he was looking at the raw data that had been used to compose his very existence was awkward and strange.

It was also endlessly complex, and baffled him until he told his eyes to forget all the peripherals and pick out the core that he knew.

He watched the game script progress as he heard Albel and the Marquis. But then. There it was.

"An affirmative," Fayt said breathlessly. "But that's…"

A flick of her wrist, and the Historian paused the video.

Fayt thought frantically out loud. "Albel actually passed the Accession of Flame. But Sphere couldn't have an NPC complete a side quest intended for player characters. So they berserked Crosell's behavior stats and made him attack Albel instead. Albel…"

Albel took the chance to breathe, and found that the air came easier than he thought as the dragon's skull was only inches from his face. Was this the delirium of his deathbed, that brought the Marquis before him even as his delusions rendered that monster human?

"I had every intent of accepting your Accession of the Flame."

"What," Albel breathed, looking up at that terrible monster. "No, no, you don't mean that…"

"I only remember you kneeling before me and speaking in the dragon tongue. Quite well, might I add. I was surprised that someone so young would dare come before me.

"But only an old dragon like myself would have been able to see through the taint of Airyglyph's political struggles and distinguish them from your own wishes. Do you know I hear when you humans speak the old dragon tongue?"

Albel shook his head wearily, disbelievingly.

"All deception of speech is laid bare. I could hear you as easily as if you had divulged your very soul. I knew how much you are really worth."

"You're wrong."

"Albel the Wicked, they call you? You wanted to be noble, deserving of your inheritance. But in this new Airyglyph's ideals, your ruthlessness was the only way to achieve that. You attempted to redeem yourself in blood."

"What happened?" Albel wanted to know, his voice strong with frightening clarity. "Why, then, did my father have to die? Why did Duke Vox have to reign over the Dragon Brigade? Why did… why did I end up with this body…"

The dragon shook his head. "I remember you before me. I remember perching in the mountaintops later with smoke in my throat and human blood staining my scales. But until two moons ago, I did not remember you at all."

"Oh…" Albel said softly. He leaned heavily against the muscle of Crosell's tail. He was becoming weaker. Once again, he wondered if his nightmare's lair would lay claim to his life. But it was no longer quite his nightmare. He had defeated the nightmare a long time ago, he realized. With Fayt. But the guilt had found a way to remain, until now.

"I can't very well take care of you here, Albel," Crosell said. "You're dying."

Albel barely registered what the dragon had said to him. But after a moment, he garnered his thoughts into what his mind believed was the answer.

"Fayt," he said quietly.

The dragon had misheard him. "Fate made me hurt you, and fate gave you that body. But you needn't rely on fate to secure your future."


	23. Chapter 23

TWT is hard to write at the moment. But that also means that some fairly crazy stuff is coming up soon…

Disclaimer: Time Will Tell is mine, Star Ocean is not.

Chapter 23

Fayt stared up at the Historian in disbelief, even though what he had seen was not her fault; she had only been the messenger. But then he had a thought.

"Historian, which one of you was the one that did that to Albel?"

She looked blankly at him. "I think you know."

"The Lightseeker was the one responsible for side quests, wasn't she," Fayt said. "That's what Blair said."

The Historian cracked a strange smile. "It was the Engineer. Only the Engineer would be so cruel as to create the peace between Aquaria and Airyglyph that produced Albel, and then ruin him. But… she has her reasons."

Fayt glowered as he found himself at his feet. "What reasons? What reason could possibly validate that?!"

"You do feel for him," the Historian breathed. "It is one thing to be witnessed in records, and another entirely to see by my own eyes."

"I…" Fayt stammered. "Anyone would get upset to know that…"

The Historian continued with a knowing smile flickering on her lips. "I never said her reasons were some you could comprehend. To her… your kind is nothing more than bits of data. More to the point, her bits of data."

"I see… so she's no better than Luther," Fayt said quietly. "Making us her puppets like there's nothing wrong with it."

"I agree, save for one point. She's better than Luther—why else would he have hired her? She spun the stories he constantly required, as if they lingered in the air, waiting for a medium to channel them and script them into the games that Sphere needed so badly to produce, to keep making money. But how hypocritical for me to be making comments like that, right?"

Fayt shook his head. "But you understand we're more than just dolls."

"Because I spend all my time looking at the results of the Engineer's work, while she has no time but to move forward. One could say her job consumed her life… pitiable, in its own way. Sad for the Kriegsbringer, too."

"Blair mentioned they were close," Fayt suddenly remembered.

"They were close. The Kriegsbringer was closer to her than she was to him, if you catch my meaning. I mean it as a warning—the Kriegsbringer is powerful. If it comes to violence, it would do you better to not confront the Engineer if he is able to retaliate."

Fayt nodded, understanding. But if he could keep something like that under control, then he had no need to be here. "We should get going," he said. "You're still coming with, right?"

The Historian smiled. "If your invitation still holds true. Let's go find the Incantatrix."

"You don't know where she is?" Fayt said as he realized that the Historian had already taken the lead. This was to his advantage, since he had no idea how to even navigate the quiet place. Perhaps it was only her footsteps that could coax the translucent hallways out of hiding.

"We will find your friends first. I fear for them, certainly, more than the Incantatrix. I'm looking forward to meeting the ones that hold the Alteration and Connection…"

But the Historian stopped just as her words halted in her throat, an unseen crisis freezing her steps.

"What is it," Fayt said nervously. He did not like being unaware of threats; a habit he did not realize he had picked up quickly from Albel. It was natural to him now as breathing.

"Impossible. It's purely impossible," the Historian breathed. "No, no, she's not supposed to be able to come here either…"

Fayt listened carefully to that. What had Alex—rather, the Tamer—said? That they would have to beat the Justice to Styx if they wanted to meet the Incantatrix safely?

"It's the Justice, right?" he wanted to know.

The Historian nodded. "Come on, this way…" and she pulled his hand and they ran straight through what had been, a moment before, a thoroughly solid cobalt wall. Fayt flinched, still expecting the impact, but they were engulfed in a rush of white noise.

"Not supposed to go this way," the Historian muttered. "But if we're quick enough… oh, no, not quick enough," she said as strongly as if her gentle words were a curse.

Fayt squinted through the marbled haze in the direction of her fretting fears. "Those are…!"

The Historian shook her head ruefully. "Indeed. The Justice's debugging programs. They look new, though… those must be the newest line. Catharses, they're called in plural. Developed especially for the Milky Way, just before Luther decided to scrap the server instead. Your friends are here," the Historian added quite anticlimactically as she pulled Fayt through the technological fog, through to another hallway.

No, not just another hallway. The very entrance to the quiet place, where he could look through a wall and see a flickering mirage of the desert planet Styx on the other side.

But where was everyone else?

"They must not be here yet. I must have seen them coming, not the other way around. It happens every so often," she explained vaguely. "Unfortunately, nothing to do but sit here and wait. Good thing you've got the Destruction gene," the Historian laughed nervously. "We might need it."

At that, Fayt paled. "I… I can't really control it," he stammered. "I mean, I'm sure if I really need it, it'll come out, but that's not the same…"

"I'd have rather you not told me that, Fayt Leingod," the Historian breathed. Her gaze was trained on the shimmering window. "I guess I don't have to tell you who that is."

Standing on the other side as if it were nothing more than a glass-paned window, a lithe swordswoman with brushed silver hair and suntanned skin looked in, her minimalist armor showing as much as it covered. But her stone expression made her nothing like the warmer Historian that stood beside him.

"When you say that, you mean that she can just come in here anytime and…"

"Fayt! And lady, whoever you are!!" Cliff's voice barked out. As Fayt quickly turned around, he saw that the trio of Maria, Sophia and Mirage was actually making better time than the Klausian, who seemed to be carrying something awkward in his arms.

"Lady, if you're one of Luther's assistants, then you'd sure better tell us either how to get rid of those monsters chasing us, or what do with this Incantatrix chick!! We found her chained up with computer wires and she won't wake up! Who's she supposed to be, Sleeping Beauty or somethin'?"

"Hardly," Fayt heard the Historian murmur humorously.

Fayt took in the sleeping young woman's features. A different Maria, it seemed at first. But something strange: it took him a moment to comprehend that the strangeness was a network of arcane tattoos that ran along every exposed limb, and trailed up the side of her cheek into the jet waterfall of her hair and into the bandage-like white straps that were her only garments.

And then the Historian locked gazes with the Justice, through the dimensional glass.

"Why doesn't she say anything?" Fayt muttered. "Is it because we're in the quiet place? Can't she just get through like her debugging programs?"

"She doesn't say anything because she can't talk. She didn't consider it necessary for her character to be able to speak, so it was never programmed to. Removing the sound component made processing even a fraction of a second faster, which to her is a fair trade."

But even as the Historian steadied her voice in order to make the comment seem nearly offhand—purely for Fayt's benefit—the Justice crossed the rippling threshold.

"Sophia left it open," the Historian said quietly in explanation. "I'm not pointing out fault. But Connections cannot be severed without Destruction's intervention. Then again, the Justice will be able to use her own destructive abilities to purge this planet, once she is done with the quiet place. With the destruction of the quiet place will come the destruction of your world's past, but I suppose that was the Justice's intent all along. In her madness, my database is simply another waste of processing."

"And then she will likely go after the Incantatrix. Perhaps she aims to fall even further into favor by presenting to Luther his most despised renegade programmer. Please, Fayt, under no circumstances can you allow any of Luther's faithful developers to capture the Incantatrix. With her, they can use the Connection and Alteration genes… something I'm sure you find undesirable?"

"How is that possible," Fayt demanded. But he never received a response as a half dozen beautiful monsters phased into existence before him.

Catharses—how sadistically appropriate, Fayt thought, for someone so bent upon purifying a world of its own independence—flanked the Justice. While the Justice herself was silent, she appeared to find herself able to speak through her doll-like angels.

"Anomalies," one announced, "please step away from the beings among you that are not like yourselves."

Fayt's eyes went wide as the Historian gripped his hand once, and let it go. He looked up at her in shock. "What are you going to do," he knew to ask.

"If you think you're going to sacrifice yourself for us," Maria shouted out desperately, but the Historian chose not to hear.

"To destroy us, you need to use your Destructive ability. Nothing else will do. I would have liked to see your world," the Historian said in what was to be her farewell.

Where there should have been white fire catching at his nerves, there existed only a cold paralysis. In that last gaze—could it have only been a trick of the light—there was that self-sacrificing gaze that Fayt had seen once, only once, and never again. It was the single look that had bound his heart to Albel in the first place.

Frozen such, he could not act.

He watched in sick, slow dread, as Maria's bullets attempted to cover for the Historian. He had no idea how the Historian even planned to oppose the Justice.

"No!!" Fayt shouted out. He turned back to Maria, to Sophia, to anyone just so he wouldn't be alone in watching this no-longer-stranger sacrifice herself for him, for his world when he could not even gather the strength to react in rage against her death.

But the gaze he met was the crystalline gaze of the Incantatrix: her half-lidded eyes, her entire body limp in Cliff's carrying arms, regarded the Justice with such a detached countenance that Fayt wondered how helpful she would be.

Then the tattoos that entwined with her skin lit up. The unmistakable fires of Fayt's Destruction gene caught the Catharses and incinerated them. The Justice was masked in the flames.

But the flames had not been his. How, how, he demanded in his head, but then he watched the Incantatrix desperately lay her head back into Cliff's supportive shoulder and her eyes closed once more, quickly with brimming exhaustion.

And then he understood. Somehow, in some strange unthinkable moment, he understood that the Incantatrix could use his-- it was his, wasn't it-- Destructive ability, and the historian had sacrificed herself to trigger that power.

"Come on! Let's make a break for it while we can!" was the only thing that Fayt heard next, from Cliff's quick thinking.

Fayt was running along the thin-aired dusts of Styx before he was even aware he had crossed through the dimensional door; another moment, and he was aboard the _Diplo_, staring frantically at the large screen that dominated the bridge as the Justice's cold face filled it. She had nothing to say, but she had no need to.

The Incantatrix still slept in Cliff's arms; Maria still held a gun in one hand. Fayt could have sworn he could still feel the Historian's last trusting grip.

Somewhere, Sophia pleaded to Cliff to let her take care of the Incantatrix; surely she was cold, she needed proper clothing and maybe food and a real medical checkup and rest. Mirage intervened on Sophia's behalf and they disappeared from the bridge just as the entire ship quaked.

"Crew of the _Diplo, _we need to get out of here twenty seconds ago!!" Maria insisted adamantly. The kick of the engine almost sent Fayt from his feet, but the speed ensured a greater possibility that they would be safe.

But where to? Where could they go, and what were they supposed to do? All the while, the Justice's face staring them down in unnerving silence—at least her Catharses would have made some annoying but tolerable proclamations of salvation and whatnot—and the question of how soon their answers, in the form of the Incantatrix, would come to them.

"Maria, where are we headed?" Fayt wanted to know.

"Moonbase," she answered succinctly. "We've set up a course so we don't have so spend so much time in ordinary space…" her voice trailed off as she looked up. "Fayt, did you feel that?!"

That was the last coherent conversation Fayt carried on before the _Diplo's_ crisis alarm flashed red and insistent, so loud it penetrated all concentration until the last moments Fayt remembered before the long fall out of space was simply a chaotic haze of blood. And then there was the comparatively peaceful black.

Fayt tossed in his sleep. The cold face of the Justice haunted his sleep, as his dreams imagined the callous slaughter of innocent people by her so-called Catharses. Catharses of her twisted ideals, they were, and had almost killed him. Where was he now?

He had dim memories of the attack, dimmer still of the crash. It had all happened so quickly, because of that one moment of foolishness, opening up their vulnerabilities to facilitate quicker passage to Moonbase. Hubris—that was the only opportunity she had needed.

His entire body ached, bruises and pains where he had not thought them possible. But to have survived such a violent crash without breakages was miracle enough. Again, the fretful question of where he could be. Someone was taking care of him, he felt sure, but that was the only fact he knew. That someone would have had to fight off the Justice's hordes to rescue him, and Fayt wondered more and more if he was in a near death-induced delirium, and he was straying at the line of mortality.

Surfacing into consciousness like breaking the edge of water into breathable air, he finally managed to open his eyes—to find near darkness. The crackle of a fire, its touch dancing on his face, the heavy security of a thick quilt. The splintering pain as his bandage was changed, at that very moment.

"Certainly took long enough, didn't you," a rough-edged voice chided gently as the fresh bandage was pulled tight.

Fayt's attention snapped to the sound of that voice, but just as quickly faded. He remembered the countless carbon copies, scattered across the worlds, which fooled him into familiarity—he remembered Ameena, after all—but he suddenly longed to pronounce that other name, speak it aloud and be heard in return.

In the close lick of firelight, the silhouette looked so much like him, or perhaps it was only Fayt's painful delirium. But then Fayt crushingly realized that it could not possibly be him. That face, the same but too gentle. Red eyes that glowed with inner warmth, not blazing with angry fire.

"Who…?" Fayt murmured.

"I don't know. I found you deep into the wastelands near the Mozel Ruins. I should think you would know."

These nonsensical replies drifted in Fayt's confused mind for a moment. Then he realized that his caregiver had thought Fayt was asking who had done the damage to him, not his own identity.

Mosel Ruins. That name was familiar, wasn't it? Or had he said Mozel? Was there a difference? Did it matter?

"But I suppose you're still delirious," his caregiver said, as Fayt closed his eyes at the aching, relieving touch upon his forehead. "That would be typical, I'm sure."

"Al…bel?"


	24. Chapter 24

Think of this as a transition chapter for Albel—or not? Hmm, that's for you all to decide. Tell me what you think!!

Disclaimer: No Star Ocean for me, I get the picture…

Chapter 24

Albel breathed in raggedly. His abductors had abused him and tortured him before they had left him to die: it was suffocating in the fact that they wanted to leave nothing to chance.

Crosell's growling voice had become comforting to him; he had lost more blood than he thought. But it was Crosell's voice that invaded Albel's faded thoughts.

"My youngest with the ability to fly and bear your kind's weight," Crosell said nonsensically. But then a golden dragon warily stepped into his small circle of vision, and Albel understood. Crosell's kin would bring him back to Airyglyph. Crosell, it seemed, refused to let him die.

An intangible measure of moments and miles away, Helgrave closed his eyes in tired, strained peace as the wind blew cool from the lake that marked the close proximity of Arias. Then, he would be able to sleep, even if true rest was not possible.

He glanced around at his makeshift group of traveling companions: his Nel, as he hoped one day he would be able to think of her; Lady Clair and her father Adray, as the ones that Nel trusted implicitly when they needed to make their exit; Tynave and Farlene, tacit as Helgrave had never known them in his limited time spent around in their presence; and Alex Barker, who had suddenly pleaded with Nel to join them and she had quickly agreed. He supposed it was some plight related to Alex's House Amarantine blood.

"I still don't believe that House Izmaria would be so bold as to kidnap Albel," Nel said quietly.

"Don't even think of going after him without my help," Helgrave said in a way that only he could make reassuring.

Nel smiled up at him. "I'm just glad they didn't have the manpower to take the both of you. Tynave, Farlene, as soon as we reach Arias, we're going to investigate."

Tynave nodded, and Farlene repeated the motion. "Of course, Lady Nel," they answered in off-kilter unison.

Lady Clair was only half-paying attention to their conversation; she attended more to her own thoughts. There was something intangible about Tynave and Farlene that she could not quite place—there were disappearances that Nel would not have known about, strange remarks made to the empty air that Nel had never heard.

"Tynave, Farlene," she said in a quiet way that commanded attention from all. "I have not heard from the units that worked under Astor," she paused, "since the morning we left Aquios. Where were they stationed, again?"

Farlene opened her mouth to answer, but Tynave found a more ready reply. Lady Clair took note of this. Whatever their reply, it would not be one that they both knew. In other words, a lie.

"Why, near the Barr Mountains, Lady Clair."

"Near the Barr Mountains… now why would they be there," Lady Clair said out loud, to no one in particular. "That must be a half day's journey from Aquios, but what an inhospitable trek…"

She glanced at the sun. It was unsettling and low in the sky; they had spent the better part of the day in the fields outside Aquios, and then Peterny as Lady Clair had an extensive word with the innkeepers. She doubted they would reach Arias until nightfall.

"Father?" she said then. "What are you looking at?"

Adray had stopped, something in the sky entrancing his weathered, calculating stare. "A dragon, a small one. What's it doing here so far away from Glyphian lands?"

At that, Lady Clair felt a tiny trill of fear: most Aquarians of her generation did at even the most ambiguous mention. It only took one look at the younger Nox to realize that, for others, a dragon's silhouette could be that of a savior.

But Helgrave was as confused as anyone else as the shoulder-high hatchling dusted the ground. The gold sheath that was its coat of scales identified itself as the spawn of the Marquis himself, and Helgrave found himself frowning.

The Aquarians in the party—all but Adray—immediately took a step back, leaving Helgrave to address it. But as the dragon articulated something in the lilting old tongue, Helgrave found himself embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," he said in plainer speech. "My brother knows dragon tongue…"

The dragon made a noise not unlike clearing its throat. A weak and nonconfrontational burst of flame issued from its fangs. "Allow me to begin again," it said in a distinctly female voice.

"I am Ibis. And yes, your brother does speak dragon tongue, he speaks it well… you can hear him speak it for yourself," she said as her wings shook loose a figure that Helgrave immediately knew.

"Albel!!" he shouted, and all pretense either forgotten or abandoned, rushed to catch his bleeding brother as he fell.

Helgrave tasted copper on his tongue and realized that the blood was from his own lips; he had bitten down hard to stifle a surprised cry. He barely registered the circle of his traveling companions closing in around him as he sighed bitterly.

"Helgrave," Albel said steadily. The flight had inexplicably strengthened him, even as his physical condition deteriorated. "She said I would be brought to you."

"Albel," Helgrave said insistently, gathering his brother's body to his own, "Albel, you need help, you need healing, you need rest…" he murmured senselessly into his brother's hair. Already, the healing runology began its flow from Helgrave's core into Albel's wounds.

The magic was bolstered by the unasked-for assistance of Nel, Lady Clair, and Lord Adray. It only took a moment for Albel to blink more aware to his confusing surroundings.

"I cannot let fate determine my future," Helgrave distinctly heard Albel murmur, as if it were a prayer.

"He's alive for certain?" Ibis asked, having silently watched the humans' spectacle the entire while. "Then I will be gone. The time has yet to come when I am supposed to enter the world of humans. I suppose I'll see you in a decade or so," she said and beat her wings against the sky.

Helgrave watched the golden beast disappear into the nearly night, and turned to Albel. "Albel," he whispered so close only his brother would hear, "please, tell me. Who did this to you?"

Albel's coherent crimson gaze lidded up to meet Helgrave's. "Them," he said in vague indication of the pair that stood behind Helgrave, and closed his eyes in exhausting relief. "Their knives are for you, brother. But they are no match for your strength…"

Helgrave let his brother gently fall to the earth as he whipped around with what little grace a man with a claymore could muster. The wedge had fallen into his hands to complement thedual glints in the hands of Nel's trusted assistants.

"Don't even think of fighting on his side, Lady Nel!!" Farlene insisted as the entire group suddenly understood the situation as it actually was. "We're saving you from these half-Airyglyph invaders! He's faking every gesture of kindness, you know he is!"

"I beg pardon," Nel said heatedly. How her own weapons had become turned against her most faithful soldiers, she had barely understood. But their electric reaction to Albel's half-whispered accusation only meant that it was the truth.

"I care about Lady Nel because she's Lady Nel, not for any ulterior motive, you paranoid spies," Helgrave spat. He only had the time for the briefest flicker of his gaze towards Nel's own. "If I aim to hurt you, Tynave and Farlene, it's because of what you did to my brother."

He looked behind him; Lady Clair and her father were attending toAlbel. The Lasbard family had always honored its friendship with the Nox family, even if Lady Clair had only been instructed in war and her father had been intentionally sent far away from the Glyphian front during the kingdoms' fighting.

"Don't give us any more of your lies," Tynave ordered him vehemently. "We don't trust you for a second, not when you claim Albel the Wicked as kin! How can you claim to love the woman who killed your twin brother?!"

"Sieg?" Helgrave said slightly, and turned to Nel. "Lady Nel, would these two go so far as to lie to turn me against you, to support their conspiracies?"

A shadow had passed over Nel's eyes. "Helgrave. It… was war…" she haltingly attempted to rationalize, but she could not loosen the wedge lodged in her throat. Her eyes blazed at her soldiers in return.

Helgrave paused as he registered Nel's words. "I wasn't in the field," Helgrave then said inexplicably, "I didn't know… and Albel never told me…"

"That's because even he could not hold a grudge so evilly, so that he would have his prejudices affect your life, Helgrave," Lady Clair interjected. "Unlike my soldiers, which seem to have lately failed me. Helgrave, forgive me for ordering you around, but go with my father and take Albel to Arias. He needs real medical attention."

"Why are you trying to clear out the crowd, Lady Clair?" Farlene pointedly asked.

"If you kill us, House Izmaria will see it as an act of rebellion against Aquaria," Tynave elaborated.

Nel interjected. "Last I heard, House Izmaria was not Queen. In her eyes, you have committed highest treason. Helgrave, I…"

Between the injured Albel lying on the ground and the frozen Helgrave standing all too still, Nel was too paralyzed to move.

The sword was tight in his hands even as Farlene and Tynave edged closer. But he only stood by and watched as Nel and Lady Clair committed themselves to their word. A soldier's treason was worth nothing better than death, and as the pair saw resolution reflected in their commander's eyes, they bolted.

Adray's voice was all that stopped Nel from following. "Clair, you and I will pursue them. Later. There are few places they can go, and they are just as travel-weary as we are."

Helgrave looked down to see the young Alex Barker peering scientifically over Albel's wounds.

"Albel," he breathed. "Albel, I have to take care of him. Sieg made me promise. Never told me why, it didn't make sense. After all, Albel seemed back to some semblance of normalcy after the Greetonese massacre… and then when Sieg left us, I understood… Count Woltar said not to let him see the Greeton engineers or..."

Nel barely heard his mutterings. "Helgrave, please let me talk with you."

Helgrave slowly shook his head. "I need to take care of Albel."

Albel's gaze flickered up to his. "I'll be fine. Helgrave, I want to talk with you as well. As soon as we're properly in Arias…"

"About Sieg?" Helgrave said with his voice strained. "No, never mind. It's all fine, really. If you're going to be okay, for sure, then I'm going to take some time to, you know, think about some things. Here, give me your arm…"

"The mechanism is broken. It's as good as my real left arm," Albel said. A distant part of Helgrave's mind noted the inexplicable casual attitude Albel took towards his deadened arm. His mind was far too occupied with the flashing vision of Nel's blades sinking into his twin's heart.

And then as Albel curled his weight against Helgrave's, the younger Nox's lucid nightmares stopped before they had truly begun. He had seen Albel's blood run from his veins, Albel dead to the world. He would not become insanity's next victim.

Hours into the night, Helgrave stood inside the newly rebuilt church. He stared up through the misted glass, at the night-burdened sky. Nel found it despairingly difficult to read his expression in the vague light given by the feeble candlelight.

"I still believe this world can live in peace," he said softly. "Apris, don't let me down, all right?"

In his own way, his prayer said more than just the words he had articulated.

A truth, almost like confession, hovered on Nel's lips. The day after she had returned from 4D space into the world that was now truly her own, she had not stepped into a church until she was required to do so by the wedding.

She knew that it was the same people who had made this world and planted their names like graffiti in its mythology, which had wanted to end its existence. And there were people bent on that mission still, fervent and fanatical as bloodthirsty angels of death.

But the look in Helgrave's eyes dissolved that guilty fact even as Nel recalled it. Those creators, however long ago they had sat down and rendered Elicoor II with their strange languages and machines, had lost their own status as gods the instant they gave their creations the faith to believe.

In that instant, their own creations had in essence killed them, choosing instead to put their faith in an abstraction that would never betray them.

"Helgrave," Nel said quietly. "Please listen to me…"

Helgrave turned to look at her. And he smiled, truly smiled. "Lady Nel. Don't think I hold any grudges against you. Maybe if you weren't so beautiful, I'd blame you for Sieg's death—forgive me, Lady Nel, I can't even control what I'm saying."

"That's all right, Helgrave," Nel said as she found herself smiling wryly. "But I'm afraid that what I did isn't. Yes, I killed your twin brother. I wanted to be the one to tell you… I recognized him the instant I saw you."

Helgrave nodded slowly. "You feel remorse for your dead."

"But I'm not kind to you, simply to make up for his death," Nel said quickly. "I… feel like you're someone I would like to get to know."

"I think you're cute too, Lady Nel," Helgrave laughed quietly. "But do you think we should be flirting like this inside a church?"

Nel rolled her eyes. But then a serious thought came to her. "You still pray to Apris," she stated. "I had thought all of Airyglyph godless… especially your brother," she admitted.

"He doesn't have the reasons to believe in Apris like I do. He used to, but after a while, it seemed like it didn't matter how long he prayed, or how often. Did you see something in his eyes when the dragon brought him to us? I did. Maybe… he doesn't need someone to listen to his prayers anymore. But I'm glad that mine were answered, Lady Nel."

"Oh," Nel said curiously. "And what were those prayers?"

"That a certain red-haired captain from Crimson Blade would consider a Glyphian of little militaristic decoration, other than having the best claymore on the battlefield, and from that distinction even less political prestige."

"Well, I've definitely considered you," Nel retorted. "Even if only to consider your sanity."

Helgrave laughed. "Sieg would be okay with this, you know," he commented. "It's too bad you didn't know him. I think you would have liked him. A bit too quiet for my tastes, but you can't change family, or who you choose to bring into your heart to be as close."

Albel musedon his left arm as he rested inside the small room at Arias. It was the flesh-scarred skin that he had denied for nearly a decade now, and at the most forceful level of consciousness, he had come to terms with it. It was funny to him in the strangest way: as long as he concentrated his thoughts a certain way, he could fight against his own insanity.

He had also come to terms with the fact that yes, he was at some level insane. He had thought it was grief, but then he realized he could never grieve, never anguish, over that which never was. Insanity was the most logical solution: how else could he have seen love where there so obviously was none?

He would be strong, he had decided. Strong enough that he no longer needed to depend upon the fictitious illusion of Fayt's love, waiting for affection he could never expect to receive. As he breathed quietly, he steadied his internal uneasiness and forced himself to believe it.

It had come to him in Crosell's cave, the decision. He needed to be strong, in order to save himself. In Aquaria, he had been at the mercy of the rebellious factions of Crimson Blade and it had nearly cost him his life: for sure, he had been their victim to abuse and torture before intending to end his life forever

And he tried not to remember the other time. He would never allow himself to be used, manipulated, weakened by another. Never again.

The thought, the merest entertainment of the possibility that he would see Fayt again, threatened to shatter the tinted-glass façade that Albel had so precariously constructed.


	25. Chapter 25

As usual, Star Ocean is not mine.

Chapter 25

"What?" the too-familiar face grimaced in confusion as Fayt realized that he had made a very embarrassing mistake. Close enough to be Albel's twin, Fayt noted sadly. But the blond hair that gently accented Albel's features shot through all the way to the scalp, and the stranger's left arm was inarguably whole.

"Um, welcome to the world of the living?" the stranger said in a voice that was definitely not Albel's, edged with an unidentifiable accent. "You've been out forever. Even the Incantatrix woke up before you. Lightseeker and I—I'm the Lover— were getting pretty worried, I must admit…"

Fayt struggled to sit up, and looked around. If appearances weren't deceiving him, he was in a cabin not unlike the one he had stayed in for a few short days on the planet that had once been Vanguard III before the Justice had scoured it.

A little away from him, his friends and the small crew of the _Diplo_ had gathered around a fireplace. The cabin was much larger than the one on Vanguard III, he amended.

There were two unfamiliar faces. One was the Incantatrix, awake and quietly animated in conversation, and a carbon copy of Nel Zelpher, wearing goldenrod robes.

"What did I miss?" Fayt wondered aloud.

The Lover laughed out loud. "What didn't you miss? Well, I'm sure you realize that it was our good friend the Justice that attacked you. Fortune smiled upon you all and sent you straight to our little hideout here on Paldin IV."

"Then why hasn't she attacked?" Fayt asked immediately. "If I've been out so long, I mean."

"The Incantatrix taught her a bit of a lesson, which is the other big thing you missed. But you might want to join in on the present conversation because it's about to get pretty interesting," the Lover indicated with his head in the direction of the fireplace.

Fayt staggered to his feet and wearily moved himself to a seat by the flickering heat of the fireplace.

"Fayt!" Sophia chirped and hugged him tightly. He grimaced, not too painfully, but felt relieved when she sprung back to her seat.

The Incantatrix looked startlingly like Maria. The very same, in fact, but with hair black as the vacuum of space and eyes the warm color of honey. Those were the plainer changes. The greatest difference—the difference that had Fayt staring few a moment after he met her eyes—was the labyrinth of tattoos that interwove itself on nearly every exposed inch of her creamy skin.

"Think of it as one very large runology marking," she assured him when she caught him staring.

"There were eight of us, of course," the Incantatrix continued. "Counting myself. We are the other key members of the Eternal Sphere's development team, besides Luther and Blair."

"But what about those other people—the people who worked with Blair?" Fayt interjected.

The Incantatrix took the interruption with nothing but a momentary look of displeasure and a sigh for patience. "We would never be so brazen as to insert ourselves into the mythology of our creations. All of those programmers joined the team post-release, despite what they may claim. Blair was not perfect, even though she was considerably more so than that obsessed Luther.

"I was responsible for the symbology system—and may or may not have slipped a few notes of inspiration into Dr. Leingod's research."

"Wait—you actually helped Dr. Leingod with his research?" Maria wanted to know. "How can you be stuck here now?"

"I was overseeing as the Metaphysicist hacked the ramifications of Fayt's Destructive ability and inflated the stats for Sophia's Connection ability when your world suddenly declared independence."

"Oh," Fayt said quietly.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure my corporeal form is quite fine in whatever hospital in Arkives I was taken to when I fell into the coma that keeps me here."

The callousness she took towards her own situation in her real world both frightened and awed Fayt. She hadn't spoken with a sliver of irony: it was apparent her only true concern was here in the Eternal Sphere.

"But listen. There's something important I need to say to you that could prove very beneficial, indeed. Technically, it's about your gene, Fayt Leingod, the Destruction gene. You know it can be duplicated?"

Fayt blinked, but Maria answered first. "What do you mean, duplicated?"

"Funny that you asked, Maria," the Incantatrix smiled, "because the method lies in your Alteration gene. With a touch and concentration, you can replicate the structure of Fayt's Destruction gene inside another. For obvious reasons, this will not work on those whose genes have already been changed, and it might not be compatible with everyone. But the possibilities…"

"I wouldn't do that to anyone," Fayt interjected. "You're a 4D being, so I suppose you wouldn't know what it's like. The fear that I might lose control and obliterate everything around me—and everyone—isn't something I would wish on anyone. It's bad enough with all of this going on, not knowing when the Justice or whoever else is going to bring about some insane Armageddon, without wondering if that person's going to accidentally be you."

"Fayt?" Sophia murmured.

Fayt didn't realize how his voice had grown.

The Incantatrix looked at him strangely. "The question I'd like to ask… is why you feel constantly on edge as such. I deliberately designed the gene so that, until tempered and controlled, it would not react except under immediate threat."

Fayt opened his mouth to reply. "I don't know how to answer that, or even what you're trying to ask me."

"That's all right," the Incantatrix answered obliquely. "And conversely… there are those who do not need Destruction simmering inside of them to feel as though their hand may cause more damage than they would intend, as you know well, Fayt."

What? Fayt frowned, as the conversation turned in favor of a more easily discussable topic. As he kept his silence, he had the creeping impression she was talking about Albel.

In the half-darkness offered by the great room's fire, Helgrave Nox mused over his brother's silence. He had been so quiet, so calm, that it frightened him. He could deal with Albel's rage, and Albel's anguish. But Albel's cold quiet, Albel's frigid façade, this was something he was not much used to.

So he had hesitated to speak, even though he knew that not forcing Albel to communicate was a bad idea. He did not know where Albel was at the moment. Instead, he turned towards Alex Barker and voiced a concern that he could deal with.

"Question, Alex," he said. Apparently he had taken the young man by surprise; Alex twitched in his seat and glanced up with fright on his face. After a moment, Helgrave continued. "Why exactly did you come with us?"

Alex blinked, and resettled the frames on his nose before answering. "Well," he said. "Put simply, remaining in Aquios was becoming a serious threat to my life."

"Oh?" Helgrave said, eyebrows raised. "Well, that makes sense."

"Now is not a good time for members of House Amarantine. I was given my position because my House wanted to give its future a chance to make its voice heard, but a senior leader of Amarantine took over and bid me to take my leave."

"What about your sister?" Helgrave wanted to know.

"Oh, she's fine. Your Airyglyph guards are worth their weight in gold," Alex reassured him. "No, the problem is with House Izmaria. The Queen may rule, but if the Circle of Voices garners enough of a majority in the opposition, there is little that can be done."

"Funny way to rule a country," Helgrave commented.

Alex chose to ignore Helgrave's sentiment. "There are people disappearing, all of them House Sylphide's supporters. And if House Sylphide loses this power struggle, then peace between Aquaria and Airyglyph will die. And war will resume with renewed vigor. The worst part is, all that is needed is for one sword to fall in the wrong place at the wrong time—oh, Lady Nel, you're back!!"

Helgrave smiled as he turned around, but frowned as he caught the strange smile on Nel's face.

"You didn't think you'd be back for another day or so," Helgrave said, a little confused. "But I guess… where are Tynave and Farlene, then?"

"Later, Helgrave," she said kindly but oddly. "Alex Barker. I need to talk to you immediately. It's about House Amarantine," she elaborated.

But Alex Barker's ordinary expression had changed. His eyes were analyzing, his face set in a put-off frown. "Of course," he said emptily. "We do need to talk."

Helgrave watched Alex leave, and wondered immediately why there was the sudden, frozen strangeness between them. Then he heard a battle cry.

It took Helgrave only a second to rush out of the door, but he felt that he could not have been quick enough to catch what it was that had sliced open Alex's shirt, leaving a trail of blood flung from the grass and joining with a separate stain on a small dagger he wielded in his left hand.

"Where's Lady Nel?" was Helgrave's first question.

"Still after Tynave and Farlene," Alex breathed. "That was not Lady Nel."

"Then who was that?" Helgrave demanded.

Alex sighed, wiping down his blade on the grass. He took a moment to look around to see if there had been any witnesses. Thankfully, the streets of Arias were silent this time of night.

"Did Albel ever tell you where he went when he disappeared with Fayt?" Alex questioned him.

Helgrave frowned. "No. Never."

Alex closed his eyes for a moment. "No, everything's already messed up beyond all control. It would do no harm for another to know. Helgrave, do you know there are other worlds up in the sky?"

"You're trying to be funny," Helgrave scowled.

Alex shrugged. "Believe my words, or not. The explanation is the same. Fayt came from up there, not Greeton. But even those worlds are like this one, in the same plane of existence. There is another plane of existence…"

"Like where the gods reside?" Helgrave tried to reason.

Alex's eyebrows rose. "Well. Different in that sense, but those who live there are not gods like you would think, even though they do have similar power. Helgrave, when Albel left with Fayt, it was to go to that other place. And when they came back, some people from the other place accidentally ended up stuck in your world. Some of which are kind… some of which are not. The one who we thought was Lady Nel is one of those who are not."

"What about you?" Helgrave said threateningly. "No offense, Alex Barker, but I can rightly assume you're one of those. So where do you stand?"

Alex sighed. "Those like me would wish to simply be returned to our home. The others would destroy yours."

Helgrave thought for a moment. "Does the imitation I just saw do that very often?"

Alex was taken aback by Helgrave's perceptiveness. "Why, yes, I'm afraid," Alex said, stammering. "I've already seen her take the form of both your brother and Fayt Leingod. She is also the reason that House Izmaria is so stirred up by Albel's peculiar presence in the Circle of Voices."

Helgrave narrowed his eyes. "That part, I'm not following."

"She murdered the Head of House Izmaria and took on his shape and mannerisms in a most convincing charade. My last act in the Circle of Voices before I fled Aquaria was to expose an inconsistency between her impersonation and the real leader. I threatened her position in the Aquarian government… and she wants me dead."

"Got it," Helgrave said in comprehension. "Anything else you'd want to share, while we're here?"

Alex breathed in shakily. "I drew her blood," he whispered.

"And… that's a bad thing? She's wounded. We can go after her easily," Helgrave reasoned.

But Alex quickly shook his head. "No, you don't understand. There's another, the Kriegsbringer. He… he prizes her. She causes turmoil for him so that he may fulfill his title as the bringer of war. The slightest threat to her, and he avenges with death. And death… will come for me, I fear. I can go after her, but you cannot. If I stop her…"

But Alex did not finish his sentence. Instead, he slipped the knife into his belt and nodded once, a faint echo of confidence glinting behind his glasses. "Tell your brother what I said to you. He does not know of my people's presence," he said, and then dashed off in the dark direction of the imitation's departure.

Death did come, regretfully, to Lady Nel's feet as she leaned heavily against the quaking trunk of a young tree. It was in the outskirts of Arias, by the gently caressing shore of the lake, that she encountered her once-loyal assistants.

They had chosen death over trial, struggle over conscience and understanding.

A strange thought in her mind realized that she found herself wanting Helgrave's simple embrace.

The best spies made the worst pacifiers, Lady Nel's mind murmured as she stared into the darkness. Their very devotion to their kingdom became their ruin when that single-minded devotion was no longer needed. When the time came to open their hearts, they instead shut them tight in the darkness of subterfuge that spies knew too well.

Nel supposed she should begin the trek back to Arias. She dreaded leaving their bodies alone even for a few hours. She did not even want to consider the state of their burial, traitors as they now were.

Lifting the small of her back from the trunk, she took one last glance at the peaceful, drained faces of Tynave and Farlene.

She set a quick pace through the brush, until she came to the road. The staggering scent of fresh blood struck her across the face, and bolted her to the ground where she had first sensed it.

Tynave and Farlene were not the only ones to lose their lives this night, she realized with sickening dread as she found the trail of blood that led her to the tortured corpse of a blond-haired young man.

The shimmer of broken glass winked at her in the moonlight, and the sheen of golden frames. She settled down on her knees beside the body.

"Who did this to you, Alexander Barker," she breathed. A cursory glance at his fatal wounds revealed a curious pattern. If her mind had not known better to deny the possibility, she would have likened the wound to the countless bodies that littered the battlefield in the wake of Albel the Wicked.


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: After everything I've done to the plot, there's no way I own Star Ocean.

Chapter 26

The Tamer's gaze could not be broken from her brother's body. In the immaculate, white halls of Aquaria, it did not seem right that her younger brother's cheeks should match the pallor of the marble.

She had only needed to see her brother's bloodied body, for a reservoir of locked-away memories to surge into her mind. But for now, until she could somehow seek out those that her brother the Metaphysicist had allied himself with, she continued to play her part.

Odd how death had a way of enforcing temporary reconciliation. The head of House Izmaria, his grizzled features trim when framed with traditional Aquarian robes, nodded solemnly as he wished her his condolences.

She took them genially, as was her place as the new Queen of Airyglyph to do so. But she recalled her late brother's misgivings about the man before her.

"Unfortunately, we have found it safe to assume that the murderer was no other than Lord Albel Nox. It is tragic that the man House Amarantine placed so much faith in proved to cut short the life of Amarantine's most promising."

No, the Tamer thought. Not Lord Albel. The Kriegsbringer, because her brother had struck the precious Engineer's face.

She had never liked the pair. She had never even understood how the Lightseeker could sanely work beside them on a daily basis when they were still in their own bodies.

And now, rage barely contained itself inside of her perfectly made-up features.

"This is war," the head of House Izmaria dictated as the Tamer found herself standing alone in the hall.

She was glad to see them all leave. None of them could understand the loss that laid silent in front of her. Because as the imposter politician was about to leave, he turned around and his visage melted into that of the Engineer's.

"Long time no see, Tamer," she chirped. "I see you're finally back to your old self."

"I won't let you manipulate my brother's murder so the both of you can continue your war games," the Tamer said, incensed.

"And just whatever are you going to do about it?" the Engineer smirked.

The Tamer held up her hand. "Care to test your strength against mine? You forget I have all of evolution at my fingertips," she forcefully reminded the Engineer.

"A touchy thing to say when Airyglyph and Aquaria are having at war, 'Queen'," Engineer sneered.

"Airyglyph will not recognize this ridiculous declaration," the Tamer promised.

"You'll have to, soon enough," the Engineer retorted. "Not that it will matter after the Justice comes to this world."

Before the Tamer could come up with a suitable reply, the Engineer made her exit, morphing once more into the settled appearance of the head of House Izmaria.

"Lover, Lightseeker," the Tamer said into the empty air. "Incantatrix."

She knew she could depend on the Lover and the Lightseeker for support, and the Incantatrix for vengeance.

Fayt watched alongside as the Lover and the Lightseeker now turned to the Incantatrix.

For a moment, the room was entirely silent. Then the Lover spoke.

"All right, Incantatrix, you need to tell me where this puts me and the Lightseeker. You know we're out of the loop—we've been out of the loop on purpose, ever since we got trapped here."

The Incantatrix sighed, and looked at her mirror. "You've seen what I can do—I can fend off the Justice—albeit temporarily. I believe that Maria can explain this better than myself. And Master Fayt… perhaps best."

Fayt took up the silence. "There's a way to get you all back to your world, instead of just being stuck here forever. With the Connection gene, we can reopen the connection at the Mosel Ruins, and send you back to 4D space. Only… I don't think that the Kriegsbringer, the Engineer, and the Justice, quite want to go back."

"Hurt the Engineer," the Incantatrix interrupted. The Lover looked up quickly, but the ducked his head when the Lightseeker caught his eye.

"The Kriegsbringer will come running," the Incantatrix half-sang. "And then…" but she stopped suddenly, and stood up.

"Incantatrix," the Lightseeker said, trying to catch her attention. A moment more of the Incantatrix's far-away gaze staring into empty space, and then she flung her hand out at the air with a flourish of symbology. Clarity returned to her gaze.

The visage of the new Queen of Airyglyph appeared as if they were sitting in the bridge of the _Diplo_ with their eyes fixated on the main communication screens.

"Tamer?" the Incantatrix greeted, seeming unfazed. But the Tamer was not supposed to be able to contact them, or even remember a single thing. "Good to see you back. How did this happen?"

"My brother is dead," the Tamer choked.

"Alex?!" Fayt's eyes widened. "The Metaphysicist is dead?! But… but how? Why? He couldn't possibly be dead—"

"Unless one of us killed him," the Tamer confirmed with a bitter expression. Still dressed in traditional Aquarian garb, Fayt had difficulty associating the bride of King Airyglyph with the otherwordly group surrounding him.

"It was the Kriegsbringer. Lady Nel found the body. But Aquaria has its own interpretation of the young Alex Barker's death—House Izmaria wants to frame Albel Nox. Airyglyph isn't buying it, of course, but that won't ease the tension in the Circle of Voices."

Fayt exhaled slowly. "Oh…"

"My brother fled Aquaria after he discovered that the Engineer had killed the head of House Izmaria and took his form. He was a breath from telling the Queen…"

For a moment, the room was entirely silent. Then the Incantatrix spoke.

"All right. Tamer, I want you to stay safe. Stay smart. And stay on Elicoor II, because we're returning there."

"Oh? That's good to hear," the Tamer said, eyebrows raised. "Be careful on your side too. I can't stay in contact for much longer. I do have the Engineer to worry about, you know. Goodbye."

"Albel," Fayt breathed to himself, while the conversation continued without him.


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: Definitely don't own Star Ocean.

Chapter 27

Fayt stiffened as he heard footsteps scuff the sand like carpet. He whipped around, his blade on edge and ready to fight whether the sound's maker was a beast or the Kriegsbringer himself. Bleary, imagined images of the Metaphysicist's tortured corpse flashed in his mind, and of the Engineer's hand soaked with surprising blood.

And then he felt something in his chest drain empty. "Oh," was all Fayt could say. What else was there to be said, looking face to face with none other than Albel, of all people?

After all of Fayt's waiting, anticipating, dreaming about seeing Albel again, Albel had not so much as acknowledged him in the Glyphian Court. Subsequently ignoring Albel was all that Fayt could do to save the disappointed pieces of his heart.

Albel's stare simmered. "Is that all you have to say to me?" he said, his voice holding back to a low snarl.

Fayt eyed him warily. Albel looked half-mad, his usually meticulously-kept hair slipping from its loosened braids and his eyes wild and wide, alight like a snapping flame as he circled the room. He hardly even looked human.

Fayt bit the inside of his lower lip for a moment. "Pretty much," he admitted, turning his head to face Albel. "So what are you doing here?"

Albel tossed his head in the direction of the hallway. "It wasn't exactly hard to conclude that you'd come here eventually, what with the connection to the outside dimension being here and everything."

Fayt glared, inexplicably feeling stupid for a moment. "So you were waiting for me, is that it? What do you want? I'm a bit busy here."

Albel gave a joyless smirk. "Well, that's just too bad, isn't it, Fayt. You'll have to take some time out of your busy schedule to catch up with me a while… you know, for old times' sake."

And Albel drew his sword in a glint of light and lunged for Fayt.

Fayt, eyes wide, barely blocked and stepped out of range as Albel followed up his strike with another, and another. Albel's attacks were vicious, and more charged than Fayt had ever seen them.

Fayt bit back a cry as Albel found his mark and sliced into Fayt's guarding arm. Albel drew back his sword and struck Fayt in the chest with the grip of his blade, sending Fayt staggering back and fighting for his feet.

Albel rushed forward and grabbed Fayt by the throat with his metal gauntlet, hitting Fayt with enough force to send him to the dirt.

His gauntlet cutting into the soft skin of Fayt's neck, Albel drove his knee into Fayt's chest and sheathed his blade in one smooth motion. Albel smiled as he pulled his hold a little tighter, drawing the first drops of crimson blood.

"So," Albel said conversationally, "how's life been treating you since we last chatted?"

Fayt swore. "Albel, I don't have all the time in the world here! Do you have any idea what's going on?" Fayt shifted his head slightly so he could look out the doorway to the corridor outside. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Kriegsbringer came for his sworn revenge. If Albel got in the way, then…

Fayt didn't even know how he should feel if Albel was caught in the crossfire between Fayt and the Kriegsbringer. The frozen uncaring dullness in his heart overwhelmed the tiny spark that ignited fearfully at the thought of Albel being hurt.

"Look at me," Albel hissed forcefully, pressing into Fayt's neck for emphasis.

Fayt indignantly obliged. "Albel, whatever damage you're dealing with, can't it wait? It's not that important right now."

Albel replied by shifting all of his weight onto his one knee, all but cutting off Fayt's breath. "You don't get it, worm, do you," he said quietly, his voice catching. "Forget about everything you're so bothered with; none of it matters, because I'm going to kill you right here."

Albel continued. "Don't worry, it'll be slow. I want to give you plenty of time to hate me as you watch the blood drain from your weak and pathetic body."

Fayt watched as Albel's hardened gaze glistened. Gathering his breath, Fayt whispered, "You hate me, Albel?"

"What?"

Fayt looked deeper into Albel's eyes; a glisten pooled in the corners of Albel's eyes and was blinked away as Albel scowled bitterly, scorning it. It was so much easier that way, to hate everything. Easy for Albel to hate the world for either withholding love or dying for it; easy for Fayt to hate his namesake for everything that had happened to him and for leaving him with someone so hard to love, but at the same time so impossible to let go of.

Fayt found it hard to get in a good breath, even though Albel had already lightened the pressure in shock.

"Do you hate me, Albel?"

"Yes," Albel said, his gauntlet strong as ever around Fayt's neck, even as his voice wavered. He withdrew his hand, drawing a ribbon of bleeding skin across Fayt's chest, cutting through cloth and flesh indiscriminately.

"Because I'm sorry. Sorry for everything I've done to you. Everything that's happened—I mean everything—happened because of me, because I was an idiot and crashed here and messed up everything."

Fayt continued. "I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry, so when I have to leave, you won't remember me and hate me. I wish we'd gotten along better—I really do," Fayt repeated, remembering all too well the time, seemingly so long ago, when he felt so confident that Albel loved him.

And he never would. Albel, whether he had grown to care even the slightest for Fayt before the boy had accompanied him back to Elicoor II, or not, hardly mattered: too much had passed between them that would ever break the barrier that Albel had formed around himself in regards to Fayt.

Albel glared down at Fayt, and his gauntlet flew to the curve of Fayt's chin, marring the boy's features. "Do you even know what you did to me that you're apologizing for?"

Fayt didn't know what to say. "I…"

Albel resettled his weight on top of Fayt, once again pinning down the boy.

"You lied to me. Led me on, toyed with me!! You made me believe that you cared! That you actually gave a damn about me! And when you abandoned the rest of them, even your annoying little friend Sophia, to be with me on this damned world? Do you know what you made me believe??"

"I…"

"I thought that you'd loved me!" And Albel smirked, pressing the sharp edges of his gauntlet into the line of Fayt's cheek, drawing a thick, red line. "And believe me, I loved you in return, I treasured every moment I spent with you. I don't care anymore if you know or not!!"

Albel's voice fell silent. "So you're Fayt's obsession. You don't know how lucky you are," he said and cackled, drawing his blade from his hip.

Fayt's eyes widened as he scrambled to his feet, his hand still tracing down his jaw for Albel's various retributions and his mind still reeling from Albel's outburst. The Kriegsbringer had come, and the dwarfed spark of fear for Albel suddenly eclipsed all other senses.

"It seems that this NPC is very unpopular," the Kriegsbringer said in that voice that echoed Albel's. "Unfortunately, I feel my own agenda is more important than yours."

"Albel," Fayt said quickly.

The Kriegsbringer took a long look at Albel. "You're one of the Engineer's personal designs, aren't you? I can tell… she does love her bishounen."

How conceited, Fayt thought, considering that Albel was a mirror of the Kriegsbringer's reflection. But at the same time, there was nothing alike about them, Fayt's memories of Albel, kind or cruel, overcame the physical bias that connected the two bloodstained warriors.

"I'm not anyone's," Albel sneered.

The Kriegsbringer smiled. "Well, I can't let her hear such a disrespectful attitude from one of her own creations. I'll just make your death up to her later… maybe if I brought the entire planet of Elicoor to its knees for her? I think she would like that. If I kill you, kill the boy here with the Destruction gene, it will even drag my cowardly coworkers into the flames of war. I would like to see that very much."

"Over my dead body," Albel retorted.

Then it all happened too quickly for Fayt to think clearly. The Kriegsbringer brought back his hand and unsheathed his sword, and quick, too quick for even Albel to block or sidestep, that sword pierced Albel's side.

Albel's eyes widened in surprise, more than anything else, and the Kriegsbringer rearticulated his sword for another strike.

"Albel!!" Fayt called out.

And Fayt felt the all-too-real sensation of pain, once as the metal drove through his chest, and again as it was pulled back through him.

His blood was draining from him fast. He'd fallen backwards into Albel's hold— Fayt lightheadedly wondered where Albel's blade had gone. Albel never would have dropped it, but there it was, glinting up at him from the sand. Maybe it was just the way the blade reflected, but Fayt could see his face and it was pale, drained of all life. But Albel's was even paler. Fayt saw Albel mouthing his name, calling it over and over again, but he couldn't quite hear.

"Love you, Albel," Fayt murmured as if he were simply saying good night, and closed his eyes.

The Kriegsbringer smiled. "How sweet," he said. "If I'd known that damned carrier of the Destruction gene would have gone and given his life for you, I would have tried to kill you earlier, so many times you were within easy reach of my blade, too fixated upon the Engineer's deadly dance. No wonder the Engineer was so fascinated with screwing up your life. You do realize that was her, right? Hah… you don't even know what I'm talking about…"

Albel did not hear the Kriegsbringer's words, or even register the mocking tone that would have otherwise infuriated him. He stared at Fayt's limp body in horror and registered the blood pooling on the ground, his and Fayt's running together, and breathed in sharply as his mind went somewhere else entirely.

I've killed him. It doesn't matter that I wasn't the one to draw the blade—it was my hand that kept him here. I don't hate you, come back, Fayt, come back. I don't hate you… or anyone, except myself. I shouldn't have ever blamed you for not loving me, how could you love a monster like me?

Albel brought up Fayt's body tighter to his own and pressed it tightly to his skin. Now you'll never refuse me, he thought ruefully. How could I have ever considered harming you just for the opportunity to hold you? I am a monster.

But even self-deprecating hatred was becoming difficult for Albel, as difficult as feeling anything. He felt all emotion drain out of him suddenly, as if it were as tangible as the blood that still flowed from his middle. It was tangible, after a sort; he felt a fiery sensation in his very pores and nerves as if he were expelling his spirit from his veins.

It heightened until it spread to his limbs; his forehead pained like it was split in half. The fire was not content to simmer on his skin but surged into his bones.

Albel wrenched his eyes shut; one by one, his fingers loosened their hold upon Fayt and the boy quietly dropped to the ground. But Albel was not even aware enough of his surroundings to realize he had let go of the boy. But then the pain in his nerves shot through him like lightning, and he whited out.


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean. Would be rather interesting, though…

Chapter 28

"It was when you held him," the Incantatrix had reasoned finally. "It was when he was lying there so long ago, dying from the Vendeeni's bullet. You held him as Maria used her power of Alteration to save him. She did say that it would mostly likely go wrong. The good news is, the Kriegsbringer is now gone, and another Destruction gene not go unappreciated."

"We can't figure out why he hadn't triggered the Destruction gene before now. Fayt, you're not listening to me, are you?"

Fayt felt the Incantatrix's palm on his shoulder, sensed the intensity of her concerned gaze. But if there was anything more she wanted to tell him, she kept it silent.

"If only I had thought to tell your father to engineer a Healing gene," she murmured, and like the ephemeral ghost from the other world that she was, left in a barely telling breeze.

But Fayt could not care for anything less immediate to him than Albel's unwaking body. All it took was for Fayt to close his eyes to see Albel's pained rage when he admitted his love for Fayt. And it hurt him, deep like a knife in his heart. It hurt him that Albel had not believed that Fayt could love him back and that Fayt had just as little belief in him.

Fayt watched anxiously as Albel stirred once in his sleep. It had been a peaceful stir, nothing like the terrified throes of his nightmares. Fayt wondered if it was better if Albel didn't dream the nightmares, or if he dreamt and it meant that the Albel in front of him was still the same that he loved.

Maria had told Fayt that when the crew found them, buried in the smoldering rubble that had once been the Mosel Ruins, they had to pry Albel from Fayt's protecting arms, and that when Albel awoke the first time in the clinic of the Diplo, he had taken one half-lidded look around the room, only to find some unidentifiable presence wanting, and he fell into an undisturbed sleep.

That had been just hours before Fayt himself woke up, and two days since. Fayt watched nutrients drip lethargically into Albel's bloodstream, and Albel not even twitching at his dependency upon the needle taped to the back of his hand. Fayt doubted Albel would care about something like food and drink in the current state he was in.

Did I break him? Fayt feared to himself. Had Albel's outburst been the last before he'd finally given up, or was it when Fayt threw himself in front of the Kriegsbringer's blade that he'd shattered Albel's spirit? For it had been ten years, really, hadn't it? Ten years that Albel had been killing himself with guilt—Fayt had simply dealt the fatal blow.

"C'mon, Albel," Fayt said aloud, but softly. "Please wake up. I'm here… and I'm not leaving until you talk to me."

But the next voice he heard was Maria's. He had not even the slightest inclination he had fallen asleep.

"Fayt," Maria said softly, edging him out of soft sleep. "We need to talk."

"What… what about?" Fayt said even quieter than Maria had spoken.

"I think we need to let Albel go back to Elicoor II."

"What? How can you say that?" Fayt stood up quickly. Maria patiently pressed her fingertips to his chest, easing him into his seat.

"Just listen to me," Maria insisted. "Fayt, does Albel look happy now?"

Fayt grasped for words. "Well, no, but when does he ever 'look' happy?"

"Exactly, Fayt," Maria replied. "He may have another Destruction gene—which is just what we need now. But at the same time, I think that perhaps bringing him with us was a mistake. Letting him know more than he needed to… was a mistake. You, becoming his friend…"

"Don't say it," Fayt cut her off.

Maria continued anyways. "Everything that's been happening concerning Albel on Elicoor II and elsewhere is proof that our interference was not in his best interest."

"Maria, it's not about that. Albel's hurt right now because of the Kriegsbringer. Nothing else," his voice cracked over the burning lie.

"Fayt, Albel's hurt right now because he grew close to you. It's the truth, and you know it. It would be the best thing for him to go back to his own world right now and solve everything that's happening down there so he can live there in peace. It's his life, Fayt. You need to let go."

Fayt opened his mouth to speak.

"I know that you care… very much… for him, Fayt," she said plainly, "but you need to think about him instead of yourself. What do you want, Fayt? For him to be here with you. What does he want? Do you even know?"

"To be with me," Fayt said. Or thought he said, because what Maria said in reply seemed more of a continuation of her own mind than a response to Fayt's words.

"When it comes down to it, Fayt, you may feel something for him, but your relationship is frankly the most dysfunctional I have ever seen! He wanted an escape, yes. But was it what he needed? I have the feeling it wasn't."

Fayt scowled. "Since when do you know more about him than I do?"

"I'm simply more objective."

"Maria, just let me talk to him. I'm not going to consider anything else until… until I've heard his voice."

Maria simply shook her head and left him in the room.

Fayt heard a waking sigh, and the whispered shift of sheets. Albel's gaze flickered up to him, no brighter than a nearly-extinguished candle, and flitted away to gaze at nothing.

"You're awake," Fayt said awkwardly. He suddenly wondered naïve he was, to believe that the relationship between them would heal itself as immediately as the wound in his side; that once Albel woke up, they could just go from where they'd left off with their confessions.

"You're alive," Albel murmured emotionlessly.

"You heard…"

"What Maria said," Albel said as he closed his eyes again.

"Hey, talk to me," Fayt told him. "You can't be that tired."

"But I am tired," Albel apathized. "Exhausted."

Fayt frowned. "Okay. Where'd Albel go, and who are you?"

"Dead. I think I killed him."

"I don't care. Bring him back."

Albel shifted so that he was looking at Fayt from the pillows. He reached out his hand, felt the tingling sensation of the needle taped to his hand and frowned concernedly at it. Fayt grasped Albel's hand before it fell back, and Albel stared at the intersection of their fingers.

"I don't need this needle to keep me alive," Albel remarked.

Fayt believed him. He reached out with his other hand and gently removed the dripping IV from Albel's skin.

The slightest mirage of a smile twitched for a second on Albel's lips, but the previous despairing expression was what remained as their connection lingered.

"Albel?" Fayt said quietly. "There's something I have to talk to you about."

"Don't keep me waiting," Albel said as Fayt's voice was rendered silent by sudden contact with Albel's rich ruby gaze.

"I…" Fayt began, but could not quite fit the words he needed to say in the right order. "I'm sorry that I..."

He breathed in deeply to settle his anxious heart, his breath only half as steady as he wished. "I didn't trust you. I just couldn't bear the thought of you rejecting me."

Albel glanced up at Fayt. "You deserve better," he decided hollowly.

"Don't say that about yourself," Fayt choked. "Albel, after everything, how can you think that I would ever… ever want anyone else but you—"

Fayt's words stopped abruptly as Albel moved forward and his lips brushed against the thin, soft flesh of Fayt's inside wrist; he felt the murmur of pulse and gently pulled the stunned Fayt down to his level.

"Why don't you let me decide what I deserve," Fayt added, closing the distance between them. He was all too aware of Albel's piercing gaze, and that realization trilled in his chest. The barest brush of Albel's fingertips unfurled fire in Fayt's body; the rough caress of his lips a torrential storm.

Albel looked up at Fayt, locking the young man in a gaze so wanting and intimate that the fire caught on his cheeks.

"Have I lost all of my senses, then?" Albel murmured. "Have I really snapped?"

"I must be crazy too, then," Fayt replied, his voice a faint echo. He had trouble gathering his breath.

At this, Albel smirked kindly, and pulled Fayt down to the bed so that they had switched positions. Fayt trembled at Albel's weight pressing down upon him, thrilled at the delicate and tempting slowness with which Albel lowered his lips to Fayt's.

Albel caught Fayt's bottom lip in his own first; a slow feeling low in Fayt's stomach surged as Fayt gasped in air and answered him.

"Fayt, you're hardly the one to blame," Albel breathed against his skin. Fayt exhaled a shuddering sigh and closed his eyes as Albel's lips searched the delicate texture of Fayt's throat.

"Albel, it's my fault that you're here right now," Fayt said, his voice only strong enough for a whisper.

Albel laughed at that. "You think I'm here because I don't want to be?"

His finger slipped into the zipper pull of Fayt's shirt and followed the seam's path; it was almost tortuous, the slow way his lips progressed down that thin reveal of flesh.

He paused at Fayt's heart, feeling the trembling pulse as it raced against him. A waiting sigh breathed against Fayt's bare chest; and then Fayt could wait no longer.

Words welled up from the place where Albel's lips teased him. "Albel, I've loved you since I first saw you. I wanted to hate you, but I never could. And then I couldn't even hide it…"

"Ever since you first saw me?" Albel repeated, his words tantalizing skepticism as he pulled back. Fayt quaked pleasurably under that gaze. "You loved Albel the Wicked?"

"I wanted you," Fayt admitted. At Albel's seductive smirk, he found a quick reply. "You're not helping, you know. Torturing me like this. You really are wicked."

In stark and intimate contrast to his previous advances, Albel gently caressed Fayt's hair with his articulated claw, so carefully that he did not even injure Fayt in the slightest.

But the instant of surprise froze Fayt still, his eyes wide. Albel was too quick to notice this, and withdrew. "I didn't mean… it's too much to ask, for you to accept me just yet," Albel said quietly.

And then Fayt's eyes widened for a different reason. "No! Albel," he pleaded. "Albel…"

When their lips met again, it was with none of the hesitation from before.

The gentle pressure of Albel's tongue on Fayt's lower lip intensified and slipped between Fayt's lips; Fayt's fingers wove fiercely into Albel's edgy dark hair as if his very existence depended upon it.

And then Fayt wondered how exactly he had lost his shirt entirely, because he could barely recall his own fingers flitting underneath Albel's clothing. He felt the chilling cold steel of Albel's gauntlet supporting the back of his neck; his hands wandered up the slit in Albel's skirt until he felt the ridge of scarred skin.

He did not expect Albel, of the two of them, to pause, not after they had seemed to lose all inhibitions with each other. But when Albel rose up from Fayt's waiting body, it was only to cast off the remainder of his clothes.

Nude, Albel watched as Fayt took in the full effect of his scars.

"Do they frighten you?" Albel asked almost coyly.

Fayt, half-entranced by Albel's form, sat up, and shook his head. "They're a part of you," he said breathlessly. "I don't… really see them after all," he admitted.

And then Fayt bolted straight upright as Albel's gauntlet caught his chin between two droplets of blood. Fayt's lips were parted, wanting, even as he breathed tight in apprehension at the razors that framed his face.

"But I frighten you," Albel laughed quietly; this time he found Fayt's fear only more tempting.

"Only in a way that you can," Fayt said to him. And then he gasped as both fire and steel enveloped him, took him and fiercely tempered him until he lay quiet in the darkness, listening to Albel's coaxing breathing and still swimming headily in Albel's embrace.

"I love you," Fayt whispered.

"You know how long I've waited to hear that from you," Albel said to him in peaceful reply as he closed his warm ruby eyes.

Fayt felt Albel's breathing slow into rest, and sighed—in passion, relief, everything at once—against Albel's heartbeat.


	29. Chapter 29

Disclaimer: By now, I think we've established this. Star Ocean isn't mine.

Some may be wondering, this isn't a new chapter. What's the deal? I rewrote Ch. 25 and split it into two.

Chapter 29

Fayt felt at peace as the wind sighed in the leaves, stirring the green sprites into a lackadaisical dance. Many places on Elicoor II were calming, but the gardens of Aquios, when he was allowed solitude, were beautiful. Alone with Albel, they were breathtaking.

A rough caress stroked the nape of his neck. He tilted his head back ever so slightly, eyes half-closed, so that he would be even that fraction closer to Albel's uncertain touch. Then he could not take it anymore. He turned full around and placed his lips firm on Albel's own.

That hesitant touch at Fayt's back became an insistent grip; Fayt's waist depended upon the arm around his frame to keep himself standing.

And then there was the awkward breath that separated them. Albel sighed, and pulled away, his gaze escaping Fayt's at the same time.

Anyone else, Fayt thought, and that gesture would have hurt.

Fayt knew he could not expect Albel to inexplicably, instantly leave his scars behind him, just because of his presence. It was a beginning, though, and Fayt knew he was the place from which Albel would begin to heal. That in itself was a strange sort of comfort.

Standing up inside the bridge of the Diplo, Maria hesitated before giving the order to signify Fayt that the skip was ready to take him—and Albel—from Elicoor II. For the first time in years, she was captivated by the ocean of stars that seemed to ebb and flow in the darkness.

"I guess the both of us lost the bet," Sophia said beside her, a charming sadness in her voice. "Neither one of us got Fayt in the end. I suppose that just means… that fate has somebody else in store for us?" Sophia laughed quietly.

Maria grinned. "I suppose so…"

Then she remembered herself. She was still captain of the ship, after all. "Incantatrix," she called out. "This is the last chance for you and your companions. Are all of you perfectly sure that you don't want to go back to 4D space now?"

The Incantatrix just laughed. "And leave all of you with the Justice and the Engineer, without anyone to advise you when you have no idea what's going on? Hardly," she replied. "You forget that Lover and Lightseeker, Tamer, and I feel personally responsible for the well-being of your dimension."

Maria smiled gratefully. "Well, then you'll have to excuse a few little detours on our part. When the Justice attacked Moonbase, a large group of Vendeeni were among the victims. The question of what they were trying to do on Moonbase is what troubles me," she commented.

And then her next words were addressed to the bridge. "All right, I guess we're ready to pick up the last two members of our crew," she said with a calming sigh. Even if she ever came to terms with Fayt's final decision, she would still need peace of mind to handle Albel aboard.

Still on Elicoor II, Albel threw his head back to take in the clear skies. "Fayt, they did claim they would show up sometime today, right?"

Of course, Albel would always be Albel. And for that, Fayt was glad. It was, after all, Albel's confrontational and smirking personality that had paradoxically drawn in Fayt's attentions.

"You've finished up everything, then?" Fayt asked. Even though he felt fairly sure that Albel would have wasted no time in the matter. "No offense, but Helgrave seems more suited towards political bureaucracy than you do. And you did say you felt sure that Lieutenant Jarvis would make a good captain of the Black Brigade."

"Jarvis has always been loyal. The Black Brigade would do well to grow under new leadership," Albel admitted.

"You know that the King and Lady Elena are getting married after all?" Fayt said. "The Tamer didn't want to stay in Aquaria after she remembered everything—no surprises there."

"There's little place in this world for a warrior," Albel sighed. "And no accommodation for blood in peacetime. Luckily, it seems that this Justice is intent on providing a target for my blade. And don't think I've forgotten the Engineer's trespasses between us."

"But not anymore," Fayt murmured softly, a breath that he had intended for himself. Or perhaps he had meant it for Albel. He could no longer distinguish the difference between the two concepts.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the breast-high wooden railing. Below his feet, water kept to its trim course, moving in time as the waters before it had, and moving swiftly with the hope that the stream would be unobstructed. Even if it was, though, water always had a way of returning to its path.

He felt Albel's arms encircle his waist from behind, felt the gentle hush of Albel's hair pressed against his cheek. "What are you staring at, Fayt?" Albel whispered simply, with no pretension.

"Just the water. I was just thinking," Fayt said musingly.

"What about?" Albel wanted to know.

"About you," Fayt answered.

Albel chuckled against Fayt's cheek. "No need, Fayt, I'm right here…" And his lips passed to Fayt's throat, brushing them teasingly against him. "And besides. You owe me, Fayt. You saw plenty of my world… now it's my turn to explore yours."

THE END

…for now.


End file.
